China develops herbal medication to treat A/H1N1 flu

BEIJING: Chinese medical specialists announced Thursday they had developed a Chinese herbal medication to treat the A/H1N1 flu.

Seven months of scientific and clinical studies showed the remedy, called "Jin Hua Qing Gan Fang," was effective in treating A/H1N1 flu patients, said Wang Chen, president of Beijing's Chaoyang Hospital.

"It can shorten patients' fever period and improve their respiratory systems. Doctors have found no negative effects on patients who were treated in this way," he said.

"It is also very cheap, only about a quarter of the cost of Tamiflu," he said at a press conference held by the Beijing Municipal Government.

China develops herbal medication to treat A/H1N1 flu

A worker in the herbal medicine department of the Beijing University Hospital of Chinese Medicine, weighs and then mixes herbs for packaging December 17, 2009.[Agencies]

Tamiflu, a product of Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding, was recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the treatment of the A/H1N1 flu.

"The municipal government has gathered the most outstanding medical experts in the Chinese capital to develop the new medication," Zhao Jing, director of the Beijing Municipal Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said at the press conference.

Over the past seven months, more than 120 medical specialists, led by academicians Wang Yongyan and Li Lianda from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, had participated in the research, she said.

The municipal government earmarked 10 million yuan (US$1.47 million) for the project, she said.

"Medical experts proved the effectiveness of Jin Hua in treating A/H1N1 flu from both the basic scientific studies and clinical studies," she said.

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The basic scientific studies lasted for almost five months and were conducted by experts from the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Beijing University of Technology.

"In vivo and in vitro, experiments on mice and rabbits show Jin Hua can bring down a fever and resist the A/H1N1 flu virus," said Huang Luqi, vice president of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences.

Thursday's Beijing Daily hailed the new herbal medication as the "world's first traditional Chinese medicine to treat the A/H1N1 flu".

Citing medical officials, the paper said "Jin Hua" was picked from among more than 100 classic anti-flu prescriptions based on traditional Chinese herbal medicine.

"Science workers proved its effectiveness through medical experiments on more than 4,000 mice and clinical studies on 410 patients with slight A/H1N1 flu syndrome," it said.

The "Jin Hua" prescription had been adopted in many local traditional Chinese medicine hospitals, it said.

Zhao Jing said 11 hospitals nationwide, including Chaoyang Hospital and Ditan Hospital in Beijing, had conducted clinical studies on "Jin Hua" and gave positive assessments.

"We are applying for patents for 'Jin Hua' both at home and abroad," she said.

"We are further developing the medicine and trying to present it to the whole country and world as soon as possible, thus offering an alternative to treat the A/H1N1 flu," she said.

The Chinese mainland has reported almost 108,000 A/H1N1 flu cases, including 442 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.

China develops herbal medication to treat A/H1N1 flu

Packets and vials of a Chinese herbal medicine claiming to alleviate the symptoms of H1N1 influenza, also known as swine flu, can be seen on display at the official launch in Beijing December 17, 2009.[Agencies]



Dr. Cris Tunon, senior program management officer at the WHO Representative Office in China, said Thursday the "WHO welcomes the clinical results," as the traditional Chinese medicine offered a low-cost treatment of A/H1N1 flu.

Catch me if you can - escaper's taunt to police

An Auckland Prison inmate left police a note on a concrete slab before cutting his way through a steel perimeter fence to freedom, taunting them to "catch me if u can".

Kevin Polwart's cartoon rabbit, accompanied by the words, was aimed at investigators, who last night had been unable to find the 49-year-old who broke out on Wednesday.

Detective Senior Sergeant Kim Libby of North Shore police said Polwart was displaying arrogance and confidence, and his amateurish artwork was "a provocative action to taunt police".

Polwart was serving a 16-year term for armed robbery, and news of his escape has prompted one security company he had previously robbed to raise its alert levels.

He committed an armed robbery of a security van in 1999, stealing $600,000.

He was jailed for 10 years for this offence, but escaped in 2001 for 41 days, during which time he held up an Armourguard van in Auckland.

Armourguard general manager Ian Anderson said yesterday the company had quickly set up additional security measures after Polwart's escape.

The safety and protection of staff were paramount, he said.

Polwart was sentenced to a further six years after his 2001 recapture, and was 14 months from parole when he escaped this week.

Police are trying to track him down through his family and associates.

They believe Polwart, who is Maori, is no longer in the area around the prison at Paremoremo.

Mr Libby said it was likely he had help once he escaped and could have been picked up by a car.

He said police believed Polwart would soon start to feel the pressure of being on the run and would seek help from others such as family and associates to avoid capture.

Initially, 20 officers, supported by dogs and a police helicopter, were involved in the search. About 10 officers are now working on it.

The prison is in a rural area and there are no bus services.

A jacket was found near the prison, but nothing else.

Mr Libby said that although Polwart had "quite a grand mo" when he escaped, he might have shaved it off to change his appearance.

And it was possible he could now be armed.

"We are prepared for that," Mr Libby said. "We won't be putting the public and ourselves in any danger."

Polwart cut through a steel fence around a concrete yard in which he was working, using an angle grinder with which he had been working on concrete panels.

Best Man Rigs Newlyweds' Bed To Tweet During Sex. Not Kidding.

MG Siegler
TechCrunch.com
Saturday, December 12, 2009; 6:54 PM

When a man in the UK was asked to be the best man at his friend's wedding, he was touched. So touched, that he promised not to pull any pranks before or during the wedding. After the wedding though, that's another story.

This man, who is choosing to stay anonymous, has set up this Twitter account for the sole purpose of automatically tweeting when the newlyweds are having sex. I'm not kidding. Read the entire tweet stream from the bottom up if you want the full story. But basically, this guy was watching his friend's house while they went on their honeymoon and he placed a device under their mattress. This device, which is similar to the one found here, is a pressure-sensitive pad that tweets out when sexual activity starts, when it ends, the force of the "action," and a "frenzy" rating.

December 9 saw the first such action. This is the first report:

They?re on the job! #1 ¿ Action commenced at 12.21GMT. Weight: 84KG.

And then it was over ? 3 minutes later:
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They?re off the job! #1 ? Action concluded at 12.24GMT. Duration: 3 m.15 s. Frenzy Index: 8 (scary). Judge?s Comment: "Is that it?"

But alas, that was just a test of the guy jumping on the bed to make sure it would work. It did. So the real first action is as follows:

They?re on the job! #2 ¿ Action commenced at 15.50GMT. Weight: 151KG.

22 minutes later:

They?re off the job! #2 ? Action concluded at 16.12GMT. Duration: 22 m.05 s. Frenzy Index: 4 (easy listening). Judge?s Comment: "Good work!"

Before everyone goes crazy over this, remember that all of this is being done anonymously. Neither the friend nor the couple are known. In fact, who knows if this is even real, and who cares, it's hilarious. Still, the man claims he will let his friend in on the fun soon. "What you will NEVER know is who they are. Or who I am.I figure I?ll tell my mate in due course that he?s had an audience.So spread the word!," writes the anonymous man. Consider it spread.

So why's he doing this? "BTW ¿ he stitched me up something rotten when he was my best man so I reckon this is reasonable payback ," he tweets.

Oh Twitter, the joys never end. What will they think of next?

Girl defies ban on driving to save many lives

JEDDAH: A teenage girl defied a Saudi ban on women drivers to save her father and brother from the Nov. 25 floods. Malak Al-Mutairy took some rope and drove her father’s GMC to the low-lying Qous Valley where water had nearly submerged the car her family was standing on top of.

She parked her car at an elevated position on the road and waded into the water as far as she could before throwing the rope to her brother, Al-Madinah newspaper reported.

The brother tied the rope on the car and then Malak slowly towed the vehicle out of the water. When her brother fell into the water she returned to help him. Her father Fawaz Al-Mutairy, and brother Faiz were overwhelmed by the floods on their way to buy sacrificial animals for Eid Al-Adha.

There were other submerged cars with people inside them crying for help. Despite her father’s pleas not to return, Malak managed to tow eight more cars with dozens of people inside to safety.

“I had to brave the terrifying floods and rain to rescue my father because no one responded to his call for help,” said Malak.

“My father had taught me how to drive cars when we went on picnics to deserts. I am sorry that I could not help more people because by the time I towed eight cars the water was too high.”

Al-Mutairy was proud that his daughter had saved many people.

“My daughter has a strong personality. Nothing, even floods, deters her when she is determined to do something. No ordinary girl would have accomplished what she did in such weather,” he said.

However, the family was forced to live in a tent after their hilltop house in Hazarat district was damaged. When they did not receive any aid,

Al-Mutairy was forced to ask for shelter from the Civil Defense, he said. He added that his wife was still in shock.Hind Al-Doussary, a woman rescued by Malak, said her driver could not do anything to save her and her children. She said if it was not for Malak all of them would have drowned.

Not Even Sorry from Carrefour Brazil After Its Goons Beat Up Man for Stealing Own Car

Unlike the US, Brazil doesn't have two separate social classes, divided between whites and blacks. Though there are very few black people at the top of the social pyramid, they form a part of the Brazilian upper class, despite the fact that the country is far from a racial democracy.

Much ado has been made about the growth of the Brazilian middle class, which has included an increase in middle class blacks, as well as the simultaneous boom of consumerism. But as you'll see from this terrible story - which has not made headlines in a single mainstream newspaper or TV program, while the sole "official" publication mysteriously was shut down Sunday night - things aren't that simple.

Januário Alves de Santana, age 39 and originally from Bahia, is a family man who lives in Osasco, a suburb of São Paulo. He works as a security guard at the University of São Paulo, where he has been employed for eight years.

His wife, who works at the Museum of Modern Art at the university, decided to buy a Ford EcoSport for the couple to share two years ago. Considered a luxurious car, the couple are paying 789 Brazilian reais (US$ 427) installments in a set of 72 installments to pay off the purchase.

Note: Januário and his wife are black.

Last Friday, the couple, their two year-old daughter, five year-old son, and Januário's sister and brother-in-law headed to Carrefour to go food shopping. The toddler fell asleep in the car, so Januário arranged with his wife to stay in the car with his daughter while the others went shopping. Shortly after, he noticed two suspicious men running away as a nearby motorcycle alarm went off.

The motorcycle's owner came over, and Januário commented that it looked like the men were trying to steal the bike. Standing outside of the car, he noticed more suspicious men approaching him. Then one - who was actually a security guard - approached him and took out a gun. He attacked Januário without identifying himself, and Januário didn't know if it was a mugger or a cop.

While they struggled, passersby called for help, and Januário thought he was saved. Several security guards from Carrefour approached, and he explained that it was a misunderstanding - he was not in fact trying to steal the motorcycle nearby. The security guards grabbed him and took him inside to a small room to "work out" what had happened. "So," they said, "you stole an EcoSport and were trying to take a motorcycle, too?"

The five security guards then proceeded to beat Januário senseless, in what the original report called "a torture session," hitting, punching, headbutting, and pistol-whipping him, knocking out his teeth and leaving him bleeding heavily.

Januário says he tried to explain that the car was his, and that his baby daughter was inside while his family was shopping. His attackers ignored him. "Shut up, n*****. If you don't shut up, I'll break every bone in your body," one of them yelled. They laughed when he insisted it was his car. The beating lasted around twenty minutes, before the police arrived.

But the torture wasn't over yet.

One of the military policemen, by the name of Pina, didn't buy Januário's "story." "You look like you've been in jail a couple of times. Come on, fess up, it's ok," the police officer said. Another police officer didn't believe he was a security guard, and started quizzing him about security rules.

Finally, the police went to Januário's car and confirmed it did in fact belong to him and his wife. His family was there, shocked to see him bleeding with cracked teeth, and his daughter was still asleep in the car.

Instead of helping the couple or offering to send an ambulance, the police left. "If you want to write up a report, you'll have to go to the station. You can sue Carrefour." The family first went to the hospital, where Januário was treated for shock and lacerations.

Meanwhile, Carrefour released a statement saying the incident was nothing more than a fight between a few shoppers. The family registered a complaint with the local police, but it's not clear what will happen next.

It's not the first time Carrefour's security guards have been violent. Earlier this month, Carrefour security guards in São Carlos, interior of São Paulo state, beat a construction worker in the store's bathroom after he was caught stealing 26 reais (US$ 14) worth of groceries. After a brutal beating, the security guards locked the man in a closet until closing time at 10 pm. He died several days later of head trauma and internal bleeding.

So what will happen with this sickening race crime? Will the security guards be charged? Will they be sent to jail? Will they even lose their jobs? Will Carrefour get sued? Will Januario get a reasonable settlement? For context, in Rio last week, a woman won 25,000 reais or US$ 12,500, after she sued the state government for being mistakenly shot by a military policeman in 1999.

Or will Carrefour, one of Brazil's largest retail chains and one of its most profitable foreign retail companies, go unpunished?

Rachel Glickhouse, born in 1984, spent two years living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil after graduating from college in 2007. She now lives in New York with her Brazilian husband. She has also lived in Spain, the Dominican Republic, and Argentina and has traveled through Latin America. You can find more about her in her blog: http://riogringa.typepad.com.

Security cameras on trains being considered to reduce groping

TOKYO —

The National Police Agency plans to consider ways to reduce the occurrence of groping on trains, such as installing security cameras inside carriages, after a recent spate of acquittals in groping cases has raised questions about how to investigate them, agency officials said Monday.

A study group to be set up in fiscal 2010 with railway operators and outside experts will discuss the matter, the officials said, but whether the plan to install cameras will be put into place remains to be seen as the discussions will be held under a new administration led by the Democratic Party of Japan.

In its policy package released in July, the DPJ, which won a landslide in Sunday’s general election, raised concerns about the ‘‘harmful effects of an unlimited expansion of police authority, such as the abuse of investigative authority and the invasion of privacy.’’

It also vowed to ‘‘firmly lay down with human rights in mind the rules of administration when new investigative techniques are to be used.’’

The planned study group is also expected to discuss such possible measures as increasing train cars solely for women and deploying security guards on trains based on the results of questionnaires answered by molestation victims and public opinion surveys, the officials said.

The agency filed a request with the Finance Ministry for an 8 million yen budget for the year starting in April next year for the planned study, they said.

In April, the Supreme Court acquitted a college professor of the charge of groping a high school girl on a packed Odakyu Line train, and called on courts to make ‘‘a careful judgment’’ in cases involving molestation because victims’ depositions tend to serve as the only evidence.

Following the ruling, the NPA instructed nationwide police departments to make thorough efforts to gather evidence to back up the victims’ statements, secure contact with witnesses to the arrests of alleged gropers, and promote preventive measures along with railway operators such as installing security cameras on station premises.

9-year-old Japanese guitar whiz dazzles U.S. audiences

NEW YORK —

It is not every day that you see the frontman of a rock group flanked by band mates who are twice his height and age.

At a recent concert at the Highline Ballroom in New York City, lead singer Yuto Miyazawa is busy tuning his guitar. His drummer, Steve Grossman, taps his drumsticks for the next song, but Yuto turns and waves at him to stop, drawing a laugh from the audience and band mates who wait for him to get ready.

‘‘The command he has at 9 years old is scary,’’ said band member Randy McStine to the matinee crowd.

It is a summer vacation to remember for Yuto, the Guinness Book of World Record’s youngest professional guitarist. The fourth grader has been performing in the United States and appearing on TV shows since gaining an online following for his rock videos. His rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘‘Freebird’’ was viewed over 1.5 million times on YouTube and mentioned on message boards and blogs as he became the latest meme in an era of instant Internet celebrities.

The interest attracted the attention of U.S. media and promoters. Yuto has spent his summer learning about America by touring the country playing classic American rocks songs and sharing the stage with some of rock music’s biggest legends.

‘‘My friends are like, ‘Oh really?’ They think I’m just boasting,’’ Yuto said in an interview with Kyodo News.

Steve Bernstein, president of Zenbu Media, discovered the young rocker in Japan at the Bau Haus, a popular live concert venue in Tokyo. It was Bernstein who suggested Yuto learn the oft-requested ‘‘Freebird’’ and uploaded the performance online.

‘‘When I saw Yuto play so effortlessly at 8 years old and so smooth, I felt he had to be shared on a much bigger stage with the world,’’ said Bernstein. ‘‘I believe he will be one of the best guitarists in the world some day and the number one Asia rock star. He might already be that.’’

Originally from Tokyo, Yuto started playing when he was 3 years old, taking after his father, Tsuneo, who also plays the guitar and is an avid rock fan. But Yuto, who has a penchant for guitar solos, quickly surpassed his father’s talents.

‘‘My dad doesn’t play that much anymore,’’ he said. ‘‘He can’t keep up with me. He has different interests now.’’

Yuto cites his influences as Randy Rhoads, Eric Clapton and Metallica. He has already shared the stage with legendary guitarists like G.E. Smith and Les Paul, who passed away recently. But his favorite so far is Ozzy Osbourne, whom he met for the first time this year on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.

‘‘I was surprised. I didn’t really talk to him much, but I asked him to come to Japan,’’ he said.

Nowadays he only practices guitar for less than an hour a day and takes half-hour lessons once a week. He polishes his singing by taking weekly English lessons, making it easier for him to converse with fans asking for his autograph and pictures.

Despite minimal preparation and sharing the stage with band mates who are much older, Yuto said he does not have any pre-performance jitters. He effortlessly performs Black Sabbath’s ‘‘Crazy Train,’’ Jimi Hendrix’s ‘‘Purple Haze’’ and of course, ‘‘Freebird.’’ He also debuted an original song with English lyrics titled ‘‘Ikimashou’’ (Let’s Go), though currently he said there are no plans for an album.

For his encore, Yuto played ‘‘The Star-Spangled Banner’’ in a manner similar to Jimi Hendrix’s famous performance at Woodstock in 1969.

For the rocker, who has an interest in history, his performance at a New York Mets game on Aug 18 could not have been more fitting as he played the U.S. national anthem in front of the home crowd at Citi Field.

‘‘I know a little about American history now,’’ he said.

Sex theme park gave way to public clamor

By Li Hongmei, People's Daily Online

A galaxy of pioneers in the south-west city of Chongqing ventured out of confines lately to address a taboo turning against the conservative Chinese culture by opening the first ever sex theme park in the country with the aim to improve sex education, but the idea was rapidly poured scorn on and many local residents even see the display as vulgar.

The park manager, Lu Xiaoqing, released to the media that he had been inspired by South Korea's popular sex theme park in Jeju before coming up with the idea to set up his Love Land in China's largest municipality. The park, still under construction, is due to open in October. However, he and his staff already captured enough public gaze last Friday, putting some of the exhibits on display ahead of the schedule—

'A giant revolving model of a woman's legs and lower torso, clad only in an unflattering crimson thong. An oversized replica of a set of genitals, naked human sculptures, and so on,' as was kept in a witness' blog. This, needless to say, delivered more than an emotional shock to the locals, most of whom expressed discontent about the development of China's first sex theme park, which has been described as 'vulgar' and 'distasteful'.

The premature show quickly set up nation-wide debates and then evolved into a general protest, forcing bulldozers to roar into the construction sites. Lu's enlightened idea was thereby nipped in the bud before its flourishing, as demolition already started on Sunday by the order the Chongqing authorities had given.

Last week, China Daily cited Mr. Lu in an interview as saying, 'we are building the park for the good of the public. I have found that the majority of people support my idea, but I have to pay attention and not make the park look vulgar and nasty.' Now it looks as if he were unduly optimistic. Or perhaps, the idea in itself falls short of a close study and scrutiny of the true public mindset. In China, sex is still a taboo subject, and not allowed to be exposed to such an extent.

Even among the vanguard youth, many also deem it a stigma if, say, they are looking at these things when other people are around, although the young generation in China virtually has a more open attitude to sex. A research project conducted by an expert from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences indicated that in Beijing alone the percentage of people having premarital sex rose from under 16% in 1989 to over 60% in 2004.

The disproval of sex in China is largely rooted in a traditional focus on family instead of individual enjoyment. The majority of Chinese adults, especially those living in the vast countryside, are still taking sex the only way to carry on their family line. Women in rural areas have long been regarded as nothing more than a sex organ. Seldom can they feel any pleasure from sex act, let alone female orgasm or a harmonious sex life.

Viewed from the prism of the ancient Chinese history, however, sex and love affairs used to be one of the main themes in human life and running through civilization, which was manifested by numerous fresco scenes and paintings depicting human activities then. They were not only artistic expressions, but more sent a message to the descedants that in those days the Chinese people had more positive attitudes towards sex. But in the Song and Ming dynasties, people tended to be more ascetic. In modern times, especially ensuing 1919 New Culture Campaign, sex-liberation had once acted as a forceful weapon in a fierce fight against the feudalist sex-oppression, and under its banner, the then passionate youths had chosen to abandon their arranged marriage and undertake an arduous journey to seek after 'true and pure love', which meant a combination of both physical pleasure from sex and spiritual comfort felt though mutual affinity.

The 'Culture Revolution' lasting for the whole decade from 1966 through to 1976 has not merely wrought a cultural havoc to the Chinese nation, but set up huge waves threatening to overwhelm the Chinese aesthetics and ethics. Sex was thereafter labeled as an obscene issue, and people's sexual desires had long been pent up till the end of the cultural calamity.

Since China adopted reform and opening up policy in 1978, and throughout the entire 1980s, things have been looking up and people are more ready than they were to embrace individual enjoyment and civilized comfort. Sex, at long last, comes to light as a subject worth expertise analysis and, as an index well-accepted by ordinary citizens to assess quality of their marriage and life. Sex pleasure is now counted by many of the modern-thinking Chinese as all that a happy marriage is supposed to point to. But, all in all, it is something that stays afloat on the surface, but beneath, the undercurrents still prove to be the forceful resistance both from traditions and from the public mentality toward sex—a once-to-be taboo, and perhaps remaining to be so for long.

Just before the pulling down of the sex theme park, a junior middle school teacher had been sacked as a result of his demonstration in class of how to use condoms properly. The teacher in question was finger pointed by the parents concerned as teaching pornography to the children below the age of 18. And last month, an exhibition displaying the furniture with the function of inducing sex pleasure had to be halted in process when met with the tremendous pressure of the public opinions.

In actuality, however, the Chinese people really need to have more access to information about sex, although it is also a fact that the Chinese are becoming more tolerant to the issue. As to teenagers, the puberty education available now to schools in urban areas has turned out far from enough in popularizing sex knowledge. In addition, most school teachers are reported to be shy of teaching something like this and, instead, they just issue some handouts to the students for self-reading.

The sad reality is that an authoritative survey conducted by All-China Women Federation showed in China only 28% of women have experienced orgasm, while in the west the number is about 90%. Less than a quarter of the Chinese men have reported in the study they are fully pleased with their sex life.

Sex, the most ancient and supposed to be most sacred topic in human life, still takes a long way to go to win its actual popularity in China.

Top ways to beat the debt trap

DEBT can be one of the most lethal forces to confront in the world of personal finance.

It has killed several members of corporate Australia in the past couple of years amid the global financial crisis, and with interest rates about to rise and unemployment heading higher, consumers are likely to be next in line for the pain.

But debt’s deadly power can also be harnessed for good, delivering huge gains to your wealth when used wisely and with long-term goals in mind.

First, the ugly side.

Federal Government Insolvency and Trustee Service figures show total insolvency activity in Australia rose 11 per cent to 36,479 cases last financial year. Most of these were bankruptcies (27,503) and 86 per cent of bankruptcies were non-business related.

So how do you avoid drowning in debt? Financial experts say it is important to have a plan, know what debts to clear first, and act to ensure you don’t become a sad statistic.
A step-by-step plan

MyBudget director Tammy May says people can find it quite difficult to decide what debts to repay first, particularly if they are flooded with repayment requests.

"The first type of debt to pay off is your really bad debt, such as credit cards and highinterest personal loans taken out for non-taxable purposes such as holidays, goods and furniture," she says.
Interactive YOUR SAY: What are your best strategies to pay off debt? Tell us below

Non-taxable debt, also known as private debt, cannot be claimed as a tax deduction. May says the debts with the highest interest rates should be paid off first.

"If you have a personal loan with a high interest rate you are looking to pay off, make sure you will not incur any penalties for doing this," she says.

The chief executive of credit union Community CPS Australia, Kevin Benger, says the highest-interest debts are usually the hardest to control.

"Credit cards, store cards and mobile phone accounts are the big ones that most people generally don’t control well, so get rid of them if you can," Benger says.

Hit the home loan

Most people’s biggest debt is their home loan and once all the other personal debts are under control it is a good idea to focus on reducing the mortgage as it can save you thousands of dollars.

"You can make a big dent in interest costs if you shorten the length of your home loan,’’ Benger says. "Look at ways to shorten it, either by fortnightly repayments or making payments off the principal from time to time if you have got spare cash."

The managing director of Club Financial Services, Andrew Clouston, says the mortgage should be targeted only when all higher-interest debt is cleared. People having problems should not be afraid to seek help, he says.

"A lot of banks now have help lines for people struggling, and a lot of brokers offer advice, too,’’ he says. Too good to be true? May says when signing up for an interest-free deal for goods, people should always read the fine print and understand what they are doing.

"Interest-free and no repayment financing sounds great, and it does work for some people, but there is a catch and many people have found themselves paying more money than what the goods are actually worth," she says.

"What is not pointed out is if an item is not paid for during the interest-free period then often the interest changes to an extremely high rate and interest can be charged on the original amount owed regardless of what is paid."

Clouston says once the interest free period expires on these deals, rates can be about 30 per cent a year. "It can make them virtually impossible to pay off," he says.

"Make sure you have the debt fully paid by the end of the interest-free term.

"It requires discipline, and discipline only comes if you are aware of the term of the debt you have taken on."

Consolidate

NAB financial planning manager Judy Power says an effective and popular debt reduction strategy can be to consolidate higher-interest debts such as credit cards and store cards within a loan where the interest rate is lower.

"Make sure you have a committed repayment plan, because people can easily get into trouble with credit card debts when they don’t have one," Power says.

A danger can be when people consolidate debts into a cheaper loan but then go back to their old spending habits and rack up the credit card again.

"If consolidating, cancel the credit cards or just keep one card with a small limit on it," Power says.

Benger says people with many different debts can find it difficult to keep track of them. "I always advise people to keep a maximum of two cards,’’ he says.

"Any more than that can be a recipe for disaster.

"And don’t be seduced by introductory offers. There’s always temptation. Nothing comes without a cost."

Debit cards

NAB has noticed an increase in customers opting for debit cards – where people only spend their own money.

"Less people are getting credit cards and debit cards are now more readily available," Power says.

"More and more people are using their own funds, rather than borrowed funds, which is a good thing."

Good debt Investment loans for property and shares are good debt, and usually come with a tax deduction for the interest expenses, but there are potential pitfalls.

Benger says people need to "avoid some of the risk of having too much debt".

HLB Mann Judd partner Steven Toth says once taxdeductible debt is repaid it can no longer be claimed, so investors need to consider their future needs.

"You can only claim a tax deduction for debt you incur for investment purposes," he says. "You can use offset accounts rather than pay the debt off."

Victim of kidnap accused speaks out

KATIE Callaway was just going to stop for a minute to pick up some coffee for her boyfriend.

The 25-year-old blackjack dealer from Tahoe City, California, picked up the coffee, some cooking oil and rice and slipped back into her car, then began to back out. That was when Phillip Garrido tapped on the passenger window and asked for a ride.

It was November 22, 1976, and Katherine Gayle Callaway was about to begin a terrifying, night-long ordeal at the hands of a man who has become infamous worldwide since his arrest last week in the 1991 kidnapping of 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard.
Katie Hall

In the 18 years that Garrido allegedly hid Dugard in the backyard of his mother's home in the town of Antioch, he was largely a mystery. On Tuesday, as federal officials downloaded hundreds of pages from his 1977 federal court trial into the US District Court computer system, a fuller, more disturbing picture of the 58-year-old Garrido and the ordeal Ms Callaway suffered emerged.

Evidence showed Garrido was a troubled young man with a sexual addiction so great that he would masturbate in drive-in theatres, restaurants, bars, public toilets and outside the windows of homes. But he was mentally stable enough to understand the charges he was facing, a psychiatrist told the court in 1977.

Ms Callaway's boyfriend at the time, David Wade, recalled on Tuesday how she would later tell him the young man who tapped on the car window ''looked all right''. The polite stranger with the ponytail pointed to a Mercedes-Benz parked nearby and said it was his but had broken down. Ms Callaway agreed to give him a ride. ''That was her first mistake,'' Mr Wade said.

It was about 7.20pm when she picked up Garrido. Ms Callaway barely spoke to Garrido, even as he kept asking questions about her. She turned on to the road towards Mr Wade's home. Garrido told her he lived just a little further up, to keep driving. She pulled over a couple of minutes later where he said he lived.

''I went to say, 'Here you go', and I looked, and there was an empty lot there,'' she testified.

That was when Garrido reached over and turned off the engine. He grabbed her by the neck, then held her hands.

''If you do everything I say, you won't get hurt,'' he told her. ''I'm serious.''

Garrido handcuffed her, put a leather belt around her neck and under her knees to keep her from looking up. Then he threw a coat over her and began driving. Ms Callaway said she tried to remain calm, to engage him in conversation.

''Why me?'' she asked. ''Well, it wasn't you intentionally, could have been anybody,'' he said. ''It just happened that you happened to be attractive, and that is a fault in this case.''

Ms Callaway could see they had driven into Reno, where they were parked in front of a warehouse. He pried the lock off and took her inside. Behind some heavy plastic sheeting, there was a mattress, with a ''red, old satin, holey, old sheet'', she said.

There were red, blue and yellow stage lights set up on the mattress, a movie projector and a stack of pornographic magazines. For 5½ hours, as a radio played in the background, occasionally giving updates on the time, Garrido raped Ms Callaway. He insisted she drink some wine and smoke some hash.

As the radio announcer said it was 2.38am, someone banged on the door of the shed. Garrido pulled on his jeans and boots, and went outside.

Reno police officer Clifford Conrad was standing outside. Conrad began to question Garrido when Ms Callaway poked her head out from behind the plastic sheeting.

''Help me,'' she said, according to Officer Conrad's testimony. ''She just said, 'Help me', again and she ran out.''

She was nude and screamed that he was trying to rape her, the policeman testified, but Garrido tried to talk his way out of the jam. He implied that Ms Callaway was his girlfriend and that he was married and lived down the street.

Ms Callaway later told Mr Wade that Garrido tried to play it off like he was having sex with his girlfriend, that the officer initially thought Ms Callaway was ''crazy'' and he sent her back into the shed to get dressed. He also let Garrido follow her in.

Inside, Garrido pleaded with Ms Callaway not to tell the police what happened. She assured him she wouldn't, Mr Wade said, then ran outside and repeated that she had been raped and kidnapped.

Garrido was arrested, and in 1977 was convicted in state and federal courts. He was released after 11 years of his 50-year sentence.

Ms Callaway is now married and lives with her husband in Las Vegas, where she is known as Katherine Hall. She is speaking publicly now about her ordeal and on Tuesday was in New York for television appearances. MCT

Azerbaijani bloggers facing jail after donkey video

Two Azerbaijani bloggers face up to five years jail for posting a video of a donkey giving a press conference, the latest crackdown on the vibrant Internet of the ex-Soviet Union.

Adnan Hajizade, 26, and Emin Milli, 29, posted the satirical video on YouTube in a send-up of the Azerbaijan government and media.

Surrounded by gravely nodding journalists, the donkey (one of the bloggers in an oversized grey suit) extols the virtues of life in Azerbaijan and praises the government for its fair treatment of the four-legged beasts.

By Western standards, it was a fairly tame piece of political theatre.

But on July 8, shortly after the video was released, Hajizade and Milli were arrested after a scuffle at a restaurant in the Azerbaijani capital Baku and are being held under a two-month pre-trial detention order.

Their trial is scheduled to begin in Baku on September 4.

Authorities insist there is no political motive behind the arrests, but supporters fear it marks the beginning of a crackdown on new media and an effort to stamp out online dissent.

A lawyer for Hajizade and Milli says they were attacked by two men and arrested on hooliganism charges when they went to a local police station to file a complaint.

"This incident is definitely politically motivated. My clients did not beat anybody, quite the opposite," said the lawyer, Isakhan Ashurov.

Hajizade, the co-founder of the OL (To Be) youth movement and Milli, a co-founder of online television channel AN Network, are both Western-educated children of opposition activists who were at the centre of a growing circle of young people using the Internet to criticise Azerbaijan's authorities.

Using sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, the activists posted news updates, critical essays and satirical videos, offering an alternative to Azerbaijan's mainstream television channels and newspapers, which critics allege are under strict government control.

Rights groups have repeatedly accused Azerbaijan, an oil-rich, mainly Muslim republic on the Caspian Sea, of curbing free speech and the media.

It is not the only ex-Soviet state to have come under fire for Internet restrictions. A new law in Kazakhstan allows the closing of a website for three months if it is deemed to have intentionally published illegal information.

The Azerbaijani government denies the two bloggers' arrest was politically motivated and says the incident is a simple criminal case.

"People are not arrested in Azerbaijan because of political activity.... There was a scuffle between some young people and some of them were injured," said Ali Hasanov, a senior advisor to President Ilham Aliyev.

"Law-enforcement agencies are investigating the case and will give an impartial assessment," he said.

But supporters believe there are more sinister reasons. "The reason behind this is that youth are becoming more active, especially on the Internet... and criticism of the government is increasing," said Erkin Kadirli, a member of a support group set up to defend to the bloggers.

The arrests have drawn widespread international criticism.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in a July statement that the decision to hold the bloggers was "disproportionate" and "typical of arbitrary judicial decisions taken with government opponents."

The UN Human Rights Committee has also raised concerns about the arrests in a July 31 statement and condemned "extensive limitations to the right to freedom of expression" in Azerbaijan.

Experts say the arrests could silence others using the Internet to criticise the authorities.

"This incident is having a negative and restrictive effect... The arrest of Milli and Hajizade is scaring off others," said Arif Aliyev, head of Baku-based media rights group Yeni Nesil (New Generation).

But others say the move may have backfired and increased interest in alternative Azerbaijani media on the Internet.

Since the arrests, supporters have set up a wide range of websites to defend the bloggers, including a Facebook site with nearly 900 supporters and an online video petition.

"Before the arrest, only a few hundred people had seen the video of the donkey's press conference. Since the arrest the video has been seen by 11,000 people and the number continues to grow," Kadirli said. "The arrest has only promoted the video."

Mass killing at trailer park

SEVEN people were slaughtered and two left fighting for their lives at a mobile home park in America's Deep South.

Cops in Georgia made the grisly discovery this morning after a family member of one of the victims called 911.

Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering said: "It's not a scene that I would want anybody to see."

He added it was the worst mass slaying in his 25 years of police work in this coastal Georgia county.

He would not say how the victims died, and he also declined to say whether police believe the killer was among the dead or remained at large.

No arrests had been made.

Investigators were talking to neighbours about whether they saw or heard anything unusual at the dingy mobile home shaded by large, moss-draped oaks with an old boat in the front yard.

Police had not interviewed the survivors, who remained in critical condition and may be the only witnesses.

"I assume they know something, but we have not been able to speak to them," the chief said.

All seven bodies were identified by Saturday evening.

Massacre

Doering said families of the victims had been notified, but he would not release any names or ages before receiving the autopsy results.

"I really don't know the ages," Doering said. "There were some older-aged victims and we believe there were some in their teens."

Located a few miles north of the port city of Brunswick, the mobile home park consists of about 100 spaces and is nestled among centuries-old live oak trees near the centre of New Hope Plantation, according to the plantation's Web site.

Lisa Vizcaino, who has lived at New Hope for three years, said the management works hard to keep troublemakers out of the mobile home park and that it tends to be quiet.

"New Hope isn't run down or trashy at all," Vizcaino said. "It's the kind of place where you can actually leave your keys in the car and not worry about anything."

Vizcaino said she didn't know the victims and heard nothing unusual when she woke up at 7am on Saturday morning. After word of the slayings spread, she said, the park was quieter than usual.

"Everybody had pretty much stayed in their houses," Vizcaino said. "Normally you would see kids outside, but everybody's been pretty much on lockdown."

Orgasm for women

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BOOSTING YOUR RETIREMENT FUND

THERE'S a good reason to celebrate the recent stock market recovery, because it may have plugged a giant hole in your pension.

Last autumn’s crash hacked nearly 25 per cent off the value of the nation’s pensions, but much of that lost value has now been recovered.

The total value of the UK’s investment- linked workplace pensions fell from £450 billion last September to just £344 billion in March, according to figures from Aon Consulting. But they have since rebounded to stand at £451 billion.

The recovery has also helped to plug the massive £80 billion shortfall in the UK’s 7,800 private sector final salary schemes and repaired many people’s personal pensions and investment Isas as well.

You could call it the great pensions rebound, although there is a long way to go before pension values reach what they were before the credit crunch.

The flipside is that anybody who drew their pension fund when stock markets hit rock bottom in March will be cursing their bad luck.

Since then, shares have risen more than 40 per cent.

This shows just how volatile pension investing is at the moment, says helen Dowsey, pensions expert at Aon Consulting.

Even a month can make a big difference.

“Someone who retired at the end of July may have a significantly higher retirement income than someone retiring in June. This highlights the need for people to plan their retirement carefully, and understand their investments, whose value can change dramatically in a short space of time.”

Despite the pensions rebound, most people still have a long way to go to save enough money for their retirement. The average pension pot is about £25,000, which could buy you income worth a meagre £25 a week, on top of your state pension.

So don’t squander this great opportunity, but review your pension plans, and consider investing more before markets rise even higher.

Your first step is to find out exactly where you stand at the moment. So dig out your most recent annual pension statements, or if you can’t find them, request a copy from your company.

Your statement should show the total value of your pension pot and which funds it is invested in, and should also show how much income you are likely to receive in today’s prices at age 65.

Worryingly, almost one in three workers don’t know where their retirement savings are invested, and have never reviewed their pension’s performance, according to research from insurer Prudential.

People need to take a more active role in the management of their pension, says Andy Brown, director of investment funds at Prudential. “You routinely check your savings, utilities, insurance, mobile phone contract and broadband to make sure you’re getting the best deal. Checking the performance of your pension should be no different.”

Thanks to this inertia, a huge amount of pensions money is now sitting in underperforming funds, says Tom McPhail, pensions specialist at adviser hargreaves Lansdown.

“Many people put their money into mediocre pension funds and never review them again, which means it stays there year after year, at great cost.”

Plenty of underperforming funds have swollen immensely, putting billions of pounds into the hands of second-rate managers.

Pensions website howmuchdoIneedtoretire. co.uk recently highlighted the worst performing £1 billion-plus pension funds over the last decade. It identified Abbey equity, Friends Provident UK equity, Scottish Life Managed, Clerical Medical Managed and Phoenix Life exempt Managed as the five greatest underachievers over the last 10 years.

Many people probably don’t even realise they are free to shuffle the funds in their company- run or personal pension schemes. reviewing your pension will become more important as more employers shut final-salary pensions and replace them with cheaper money-purchase schemes.

“More workers now have to take personal responsibility for their pension funds, or pay the price in retirement,” McPhail says.


Planning your best saving strategy

Where you should invest for retirement partly depends on what pension you have already, and your own attitude to risk.

The following tips, from Neil Thomas, director of independent financial adviser Simpsons of
Brighton, should help.

If you belong to a workplace final-salary scheme, your best option may be to buy additional years in the scheme (if you can). “Final salary schemes are attractive because your employer shoulders the investment risk. even if stock markets fare badly, your pension is still protected. Unfortunately, many companies are now closing their schemes.”

If you are in your company’s final-salary scheme, consider making additional voluntary
contributions (AVCs). “Charges are usually lower than on a personal pension, which should help boost your total return. But not every scheme offers AVCs, and the investment choice is often limited. You may prefer the greater flexibility of a stakeholder pension,” Thomas says.

Stakeholder pensions are an attractive way to top up your retirement savings, because your contributions earn tax relief at 20 per cent year or 40 per cent, depending on your tax bracket. You can also choose from a wide range of schemes offered by leading insurance companies such as Norwich Union, Prudential and Standard Life.

Isas are also tax efficient and offer greater flexibility than pensions. “You don’t get any tax relief on your contributions, but can draw income and capital gains free of tax. Plus you don’t have to buy an annuity, as you have to with your pension fund, and your dependants can inherit the money after you die, which they can’t with an annuity,”
Thomas says.

If you’re approaching retirement, you need to take careful stock of your pension planning, and choose your
annuity wisely. Investment-linked pension savers now receive a “wake-up pack” six months before they retire, setting out their options, including the freedom to shop around for their annuity.

Many people still make the mistake of buying their annuity from their pension provider, rather than seeking
better rates elsewhere.

From taking out your first pension to buying your annuity, you have to plan carefully. You should also take independent advice.

Woman's murder unsolved but not forgotten

She springs out of bed. Red lights on her clock radio flash 4:20 a.m. "Where is Simone?"

That question has passed Linda Sandler's lips a thousand times in the past 15 years. Especially in the dead of night, when her subconscious transports her back to July 24, 1994, when she was startled awake and knew – with a mother's intuition – that she would never see her daughter again. "I woke up thinking `this is wrong,' " Sandler says now. "Something is wrong."

It would be another nine agonizing nights before her worst fears were confirmed, but chances are good 21-year-old Simone Penni Sandler was already dead by the time her mother fumbled for the phone to call York Regional Police.

To this day her murder is a cold case mystery. No motive, suspects or leads. And while police re-ignited their investigation 18 months ago at the family's request, they have once again hit only dead ends.

Back in 1994, officers arrived at the Sandlers' home within 20 minutes that humid summer morning. But when they learned Simone had just crossed the threshold into adulthood, they backed off. Maybe she had slept out with a boyfriend, they suggested, or had skipped curfew. When the Sandlers contacted Toronto police in the following days, officials said their hands were tied, the family alleges in a complaint filed to the York Regional Police Services Board. Even though Simone had been working near the Eaton Centre on the afternoon she went missing, York police would have had to enlist the services of Toronto police in order to get help from them.

But they didn't, the document shows. An investigation did not start for an entire week. An ocean of time, detectives say today, for invaluable strands of evidence to uncoil, witnesses to slip away and leads to vanish.

Their inaction may have lasted even longer if a couple driving along Lake Shore Blvd. E. the following Saturday had not spotted something bobbing in the Keating Channel.

Simone's body was bloated and battered. She was naked from the waist down. A green garbage bag was knotted around her neck as she floated in the Don River among the empty potato chip bags, Styrofoam cups and construction debris.

The consummate ingénue, Simone was sweet and pretty, shy and trusting. Petite and fair-skinned with flaxen-coloured curls, she loved to pose for pictures, bake carrot muffins and work out at the YMCA. But her parents admit she lacked savvy and street smarts.

Fresh off her first year in hospitality and tourism at Humber College, Simone took a summer job with a now-defunct casting company called Actors and Models Studio.

Her office was a sandwich board parked at gritty Yonge and Gerrard Sts., between the now-shuttered La Maison croissant shop and the Evergreen Youth Shelter. Her task was recruiting passersby to become extras on film and TV shoots.

Getting through those long summer days downtown was tough at first for Simone. But quickly, she struck up a partnership of sorts with the street rats and homeless kids who hung around the area.

Implausible as it seemed for this sheltered Thornhill girl to carve a niche among these social misfits, Simone was absorbed by the group, even falling for a new boyfriend. "Joe," tattooed but attractive, was a year older. He had a way about him, detectives said, and certainly "knew how to work it." Later on, "friends" would say that Simone was often seen holding Joe's hand. But others said the two broke up a week before her disappearance.

The group invited her to gatherings in the wooded areas off Cherry Beach to smoke marijuana around sandpit bonfires. Detectives would later place Simone at one of these "parties" the night she disappeared. But they will never really know how she spent her last hours.

Her case was fraught with challenges, says Mark Mendelson, one of the original investigators.

Detectives could never crawl out of the weeklong black hole in their investigation. The river's toxic waters removed any hint of a murderer's DNA. Other evidence was probably washed away in a thunderstorm four days after Simone's body was discovered, forcing police to call off their search for clues.

While there are always more tests in the works, and evidence can be found in the unlikeliest places, detectives say, even today's technology has failed to detect a flake of dead skin or a single strand of hair on the garbage bag tied around her neck. Biologists methodically separated each knot in the plastic weapon, recently dissecting it with fresh intent, but found nothing.

After Simone's body was discovered, an autopsy merely concluded she had died of strangulation. The body was so badly decomposed that dental records were used for final identification. There had been an unsuccessful attempt at rape.

"It was one of those nasty investigations," Mendelson says. "Every time we thought we turned a corner and answered a question, we didn't. We just picked up three more questions." Perhaps, the biggest impediment was the quality of witnesses – the homeless kids Simone had befriended, the wayward youth, the hot dog vendors. Sure, they recognized the girl who had become a local fixture. But could they shed light on what happened to her? Who did it? A resounding no.

There were many fruitless attempts to find people and confirm alibis. Even a $100,000 reward offered in 1998 for information yielded nothing.

The last time Stephen Sandler saw his daughter was the Saturday she disappeared. She smiled at him, mid-stride from across the street.

"Do you want a lift to the subway?" he called out. "No thanks, Dad," she said, a hand at her face shielding her eyes from the sun's glare. Today, the Sandlers are left with that vision, the hurt as fresh as the day their daughter went missing.

Over the years, the family has accumulated part of their pain in a bulging red folder. Documents burst out the sides – explanations, apologies and promises from top York police brass, government officials and politicians that something like this will never happen again.

The Sandlers toyed with legal action against York Regional police, believing that Toronto officers might have located their daughter sooner had they gotten the go-ahead to proceed with an investigation. But the Sandlers decided against a legal course of action.

It won't bring back Simone. Nothing will. Not even finding her killer.

"But someone should not be getting away with this," Linda and Stephen both said. "If they do find out, it will at least give us some sense of closure."

Pregnant women warned to protect against H1N1

Since more than 10 percent of the H1N1 swine flu fatalities in Brazil were pregnant women, doctors in Japan are asking expectant mothers — who have a higher risk of developing complications if infected — to wash their hands and take other precautions.

The Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology, an organization of OB-GYN doctors, is calling for pregnant women with suspected swine flu symptoms to get treatment at fever clinics and general hospitals rather than OB-GYN clinics to prevent the H1N1 virus from spreading to other expectant mothers during the epidemic.

JSOG is recommending Tamiflu and Relenza for pregnant women who catch the new flu. A guideline in the United States says the two antiviral drugs have no negative side effects on babies. The organization is also urging the government to give expectant women priority for swine flu vaccines.

The figures announced Wednesday by the Brazilian government sent shock waves around the world. Of the 557 people who died, 58 were pregnant. No such deaths have been reported so far in Japan.

The government is expected to formally place expectant mothers on the vaccine priority list in September.

"Pregnant women comprise only about 1 percent of the population but the number of deaths (among those women) is high," Hisanori Minakami, a professor at Hokkaido University who belongs to JSOG, said during a meeting Thursday to discuss the priority list for new influenza vaccines. "I have a sense of crisis."

Women are also concerned.

"I'm worried about the higher risk of pregnant women but I'm also worried what will happen to my newborn baby," said a 42-year-old woman in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, who is close to giving birth.

She wears a mask when she needs to go out and avoids crowds. "But I don't know which department to be treated at when I am infected," she said.

When women are pregnant, their immunity to viruses weakens, putting them at higher risk of complications. Seasonal and new flu viruses can lead to pneumonia and other diseases.

JSOG is urging pregnant women with potential flu symptoms — fever, runny nose, sore throat and cough — to call a general hospital and get treated early.

Nationwide, total swine flu deaths grew to seven Saturday when a woman in her 30s in Tatsuno, Hyogo Prefecture, died after contracting the virus, the municipal government of Himeji said the same day.

She was preceded by a female cancer patient, also from Hyogo, in her 60s, the Kagoshima Prefectural Government said.

The woman, from Makurazaki, Hyogo Prefecture, had cancer of the digestive system and a tumor that spread to her lungs after surgery, local government officials said.

She was treated with Tamiflu on Friday after being entering a hospital complaining of a sore throat, coughing and a 38-degree fever she had developed the previous day, officials said. But her condition worsened, and she died early Saturday, becoming the nation's sixth swine flu fatality.

In Shiga Prefecture, a 5-year-old boy infected with swine flu showed signs of resistance toward Tamiflu, the prefecture said Saturday, becoming the fifth Tamiflu-resistant patient in the country.

Prefecture officials said the virus is likely to have mutated in his body.

Although the boy was given Tamiflu, he showed no signs of recovery and was admitted to a hospital, the officials said, adding he has now fully recovered from the virus.

Let Malaysians advertise Pendet and wayang

We Indonesians are simply overreacting in our response to Malaysia's use of the Balinese Pendet dance in promotional TV spots. We are acting like a big brother and bullying our younger brother. And such responses will not help us become a better nation.

First, it was a small protest from a group of Balinese people, the rightful owner of the dance, then unfortunately it grew into a nationwide condemnation of Malaysia.

Just read the comments posted at www.thejakartapost.com or many other Internet forums discussing the issue, and you will easily find many condemnations from Indonesians against Malaysia, some even urging the government to ganyang (invade) Malaysia, invoking memories of the time Indonesia was in confrontation with Malaysia.

Unwisely, the government responded in the same way, with the tourism minister summoning the Malaysian embassy's top official and sending a letter of protest to his counterpart in Kuala Lumpur.

But it did not stop there. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono joined the fray, calling on the Malaysian government to deal more carefully with "sensitive" cultural issues between the two countries.

Our responses have really gone too far. Just read this news from Antara: Diponegoro University (Undip), one of Indonesia's leading institutes of higher learning, has stopped admitting Malaysian students for the 2009-2010 academic year in an expression of "nationalism".

"We have done it as a concrete expression of our sense of nationalism," Undip rector Susilo Wibowo said Tuesday as quoted by Antara, after attending a ceremony to mark the induction of new students.

But we don't know the real reasons behind it. It could be because there were no Malaysian students applying to study at the university this academic year, which begins in July.

The point here is that we just overreacted to this issue, or worse, we tried to bully one of our closest neighbors.

Malaysia uses various Asian cultural expressions, especially Chinese and Indian, in its tourism campaign "Malaysia Truly Asia". China and India have never protested Malaysia's use of their cultural heritage in its tourism campaigns.

Why then are we so angry whenever Malaysia uses our cultural heritage, including the Pendet, batik and wayang in their tourism campaigns? In reality, though, Malaysia has never claimed the Pendet as their dance, batik as their craft or wayang as their performance.

These are Indonesian cultural expressions brought to Malaysia by the millions of Indonesians who moved there, mostly as migrant workers.

If it's an issue of rights, we don't have copyrights for most of our cultural products. Much, if not the majority of our cultural heritage, was created by our ancestors for the good of society and mankind.

For instance, many of our best classical Javanese gamelan compositions were written by anonymous composers. They were composed for the kings and the people, and the composers deliberately did not put their names there, much less copyrighted them.

Before Indonesia existed, anyone could play these compositions, even people from outside the Javanese kingdom. Now that Indonesia exists, does it mean nobody outside Indonesia can play and use them in their tourism campaigns, even if they have gamelan groups in their own countries?

Currently, hundreds of gamelan groups exist outside Indonesia. If they wish to promote their groups or if their country wishes to use these gamelan groups to promote tourism, they have every right to use gamelan images in their campaign.

Thus instead of getting angry or sending letter of protests or stopping admitting Malaysian students, we should be more positive and collaborate with the Malaysian government to promote our culture in that country.

When there are more Malaysians dancing the Pendet and playing the gamelan and to Indonesian pop songs, it will only mean more benefits, and not losses, to Indonesia. It will mean more commerce and tourism between the two countries.

Not only that, it would also strengthen cultural ties between the two nations.

Similarly, if Malaysia advertises more Indonesian cultural heritage, it would bring more benefits than losses to us.

Let says, Malaysia advertises the Pendet, and tourists go there because of the advertisement. There is a great chance these tourists will continue on to Bali to see the Pendet at its source. So it not only saves us precious advertising dollars - which we rarely ever spend anyway - but also brings in dollar from more tourist visits.

So let Malaysians dance our Pendet and play our wayang and advertise them. It will only do good things for us in Indonesia.

Fears as Chinese food pours in, farmers claim lost markets and biosecurity risk

CHINA is supplying an ever increasing quantity of food to Australian consumers, raising concerns about food safety and the capacity of local farmers to compete with cheaper imports.

According to the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service, between January 1 last year and May 31 this year more than 4200 tonnes of prawns were imported from China into Australia.

This was in addition to 153 tonnes of frozen broccoli and cauliflower, 65 tonnes of fresh apples, 95 tonnes of fresh pears, 325 tonnes of garlic, 72 tonnes of peas and 4292 tonnes of peanuts and peanut butter. Last year, imports of Chinese vegetables rose by 35 per cent from 2007, making it the second-biggest importer, behind New Zealand. As imports have risen, local production has declined.

"Chinese imports are putting the industry in Australia on a very unsound footing and I think Australians should be very concerned about food security," said Tasmanian vegetable grower Mike Badcock, a former chairman of peak body Ausveg.

Mr Badcock said Australian producers faced higher costs due to stricter standards.

"The biggest problem we have got is the government attitude that we have to meet the market, but it is not a fair market and I think the government is playing a very risky game for a short-time cheap product. Once the Chinese have ruined our industries in Australia the prices will go up," he said.

Mr Badcock cited the example of the Australian garlic industry. He said Chinese garlic, a quarter the cost of the local product, had flooded the market. "But once they ruined the producers of garlic in Australia, they put the price back up."

He said 90 per cent of garlic now sold in Australia came from China.

Federal Minister for Agriculture Tony Burke said 98 per cent of the fresh produce in Australia was locally grown. "The question that needs to be asked when deciding whether fresh produce should be allowed to be imported is whether or not there is an unacceptable biosecurity risk. Our systems for assessing that are rigorous and science-based," Mr Burke said.

But opposition spokesman on agriculture John Cobb said: "When we look at the stuff that is coming in and competing in Australia with Australian products, it is staggering."

He argued that when the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme came in, Australian products would become even more expensive.

Australians were alerted to food safety problems in China last year after melamine was found to have been added to baby formula. Six infants died and nearly 300,000 were hospitalised.

In the US, 1950 cats and 2200 dogs died after eating food contaminated with melamine. Melamine-tainted products were also fed to pigs, fish farms and chickens.

A US Department of Agriculture report last month said the most common reasons Chinese products were refused entry to the US were "filth", unsafe additives, inadequate labelling and lack of proper manufacturer registration, and potentially harmful veterinary drug residues in farmed fish and prawns.

Trevor Anderson of the Australian Prawn Farmers Association worries about the risk of diseases such as white spot and yellow head virus that exist in China but not in Australia.

He said a number of antibiotics had been found in Chinese prawns that resulted in bans and restrictions into the US, "who are much more rigorous than we are about these things".

Mr Anderson said Australian farms were run under "rigorous environmental standards".

"Not only are the Environmental Protection Authority watching every step we make, we are watching each other. We have a clean, green image to protect," he said.

How Retirees Can Spend Enough, but Not Too Much

By RON LIEBER
Published: August 28, 2009

When you retire, you’ll probably want to visit your grandchildren more than once each year. Perhaps you’ll aim to give money each month to charity or your religious congregation.

The amount you have saved will clearly matter a great deal in whether you can do these things. But so will your portfolio withdrawal rate — the percentage of your assets that you take out each year to pay your expenses. You want it to be high enough to afford fun and generosity but low enough that you have little risk of running out of money.

Until a few years ago, the standard advice was that 4 percent or 4.5 percent was about the best you could do. So if you had $500,000 in savings, 4 percent would give you about $20,000 in your first year of retirement to augment Social Security and any other income. Then, you could give yourself a raise each year based on inflation. At 3 percent inflation, you’d end up with $20,600 in the second year of retirement and so on from there.

More recently, however, several studies have suggested that withdrawing 5 percent or even 6 percent was possible — and still prudent.

Retirees rejoiced.

And then the stock market fell to pieces.

In the wake of the carnage, people who hope to retire anytime soon will probably be starting with a kitty smaller than they had expected just a few years ago. So an extra percentage point on the withdrawal rate matters even more than it might have in 2007. It could be the difference between traveling to see family or not, or it could determine when you get to retire in the first place.

But could it also lead you on a path toward ruin? This week, I went back to two of the researchers who had come up with the more generous formulas to see whether they’re sticking by them. Not only are they staying the course, but one is telling his clients that they can take out as much as 6 percent of their money during the next year.

How can they justify something like this after the year we’ve just had?

Setting a Rate

Here’s one big reason to be suspicious about applying that same 4.5 percent withdrawal rate to all people, no matter when they retire: Should a person who had the bad luck to retire in March 2009, at the stock market’s recent bottom, spend 4.5 percent of, say, $350,000, or could they spend a bit more? After all, people who retired a year or two earlier with the same portfolio, before the bulk of the stock market’s decline, might have started with 4.5 percent of $550,000 (and taken inflation-adjusted raises each year from that initial amount until they died).

It didn’t seem right to Michael E. Kitces, a financial planner and director of research at Pinnacle Advisory Group in Columbia, Md. He said he was uncomfortable with all the decisions made based on “the day you happen to come into my office and the balance on that day.”

In fact, he started looking into this before the market collapsed, and his research ended up suiting the conditions of the last year perfectly. He tried to figure out whether one could estimate how much better or worse stock market returns might be in the years after big declines — and whether the answer might allow for a more generous initial withdrawal rate.

What he concluded was that the overall market’s price-earnings ratio — taking the current price for the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index divided by the average inflation-adjusted earnings for the past 10 years before the date of withdrawal — was predictive enough to produce guidelines. Then he came up with the following suggestions for a portfolio of 60 percent stocks and 40 percent bonds meant to last through 30 years of retirement.

If the ratio was above 20, indicating that stocks were overvalued, than a 4.5 percent withdrawal rate was prudent given that the stock market was likely to fall. But if it was between 12 and 20 (the historical median is roughly 15.5), a 5 percent rate was safe, tested against every historical period for which data was available. And if it was under 12 — a level it almost got to earlier this year — a rate of 5.5 percent would work.

The most recent figure was 17.67, which suggests a 5 percent withdrawal rate for current retirees. It had been above 20 until October 2008.

Mr. Kitces gets his ratios from a set of data that the Yale professor Robert Shiller creates and stores on Yale’s Web site , at http://bit.ly/3gexz. I’ve provided a link to that data (Mr. Kitces uses column K in the Excel spreadsheet there) and to all of the other research in this column in the online version of this story.

Making Adjustments

Jonathan Guyton, a financial planner with Cornerstone Wealth Advisors in Edina, Minn., looked at the 4.5 percent baseline and asked a different question: Couldn’t it be a whole lot higher if a client was willing to forgo the annual inflation raise when conditions called for a bit of thrift?

And if so, under what conditions would that happen — and would people be willing to, in effect, cut their own retirement paycheck?

It didn’t take Mr. Guyton long to find out. Two studies he worked on in 2004 and 2006 led him to the following conclusions about a portfolio meant to last 40 years: Using Mr. Kitces’s research to establish a baseline initial withdrawal rate of up to 5.5 percent (or 5 percent given valuations at the moment), the initial withdrawal rate could rise another whole percentage point, to 6.5 percent, if at least 65 percent of the money was in a variety of stocks, as long as the owner followed a few rules.

First, if the portfolio lost money in any given year, there would be no raise at all for inflation. And if the size of the withdrawal, in dollars, in any year amounted to an actual percentage rate of the remaining portfolio that was at least 20 percent more than the initial withdrawal rate, retirees would have to take a 10 percent cut in their annual allowance that year. Then, the increase for inflation would build on that new base the following year.

While Mr. Guyton also put a “prosperity” rule into place that allowed for a 10 percent increase in particularly good years, 2008 tested his “capital preservation” rule first. So he cut his clients’ withdrawals by 10 percent.

How did they take it? “Many of them said, ‘Really, that’s all?’ ” he recalled. “Keep in mind how dire things seemed.”

Others blanched, noting that they had played by the rules and didn’t cause the financial crisis. But they came around when Mr. Guyton gave them a good talking to. “For us to maintain the same degree of long-term financial security for you that you said you wanted, this is what you need to do,” he told them. “It’s a system. And the great thing about a policy is that it leaves no doubt about what you are supposed to do.”

Another cut of 10 percent might severely hurt their purchasing power, but the stock market’s performance since March suggests that it won’t be necessary in the coming months.

The Real World

The actual execution of these strategies requires a bit more work. You need to figure out what stocks and bonds should make up your investments in the first place, for instance, and how best to minimize taxes when you sell each year.

All this together seems complicated enough to suggest to a cynic that it’s just a ruse to keep a client coming back each year for costly checkups. That said, surviving retirement without a big pension that never runs out isn’t easy, and paying a bit of money each year in exchange for help in prudently raising your withdrawal rate by 20 percent does not strike me as completely insane.

Retirees also have to wonder whether the market will behave in the future as it has in the past. Or whether retirees can realistically stick to a strict budget. “Even if you tell me that spending fluctuates a bit here and there, we still have to start somewhere,” said Mr. Kitces. “What on earth is your alternative? Are you not going to give any spending recommendations whatsoever?”

Mr. Guyton solves this issue for clients who can afford it by carving out a separate discretionary fund. Retirees can spend that money on anything, but once it’s gone, it’s gone, unless they manage to replenish it out of their regular annual withdrawal.

There are still plenty of retirees and advisers who will balk at what appears to be outsize aggressiveness, whatever the studies indicate. To them, Mr. Guyton suggests an entirely different consideration.

“The only problem is you run out of money? I don’t buy that,” he said. “For a lot of people who lock in on a 4 percent figure, it’s a formula for regret. They get 15 years in and look back at all of the things they didn’t do. And now their health is gone.”

Lotto shakeup looms

Rob Ferguson
Robert Benzie
Queen's Park Bureau

The Liberal government is set to clear house at the troubled Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation in a mad scramble to pre-empt another eHealth-style spending scandal, the Star has learned.

Three informed sources said OLG chief executive Kelly McDougald is fighting for her $400,000-a-year job, which she got two years ago with a mandate to reform the error-prone monopoly that oversees everything from casinos to the popular Lotto 6/49.

Sources said late yesterday that the Liberals hope to short-circuit an expected onslaught from the Progressive Conservatives when the Legislature returns Sept. 14 and are concerned about the impact of any new controversy on the Sept. 17 by-election in the mid-town Toronto riding of St. Paul's.

"Something big is up," a senior government official confirmed.

"By next week, OLG will look much different. And by the time this is over, they'll be forced to clean up their act."

McDougald has already been reprimanded by the Liberals for a series of problems at the gambling agency – including awarding foreign-made Mercedes-Benz cars as casino prizes at the same time as the province was bailing out General Motors and Chrysler.

An audit last winter also found:

A Good Samaritan treated shabbily when he tried to turn in a cache of lost tickets;

A malfunctioning slot machine erroneously informing a player he'd won $42.9 million when the maximum payout was $9,025;

A misprinted scratch-and-win ticket that led a man to believe he had won $135,000 when he hadn't.

But the straw that broke the camel's back appears to be Liberal fears of a reprise of the eHealth Ontario debacle at OLG.

The Tories, repeating their successful strategy that exposed spending run amok at the electronic health records agency, are seeking thousands of pages in OLG documents under freedom of information legislation.

Records sought include expense accounts of senior executives, spending on leased, owned and rented venues, such as luxury boxes at sports stadiums, contracts for consultants as well as travel costs.

So far, the Tories have been stonewalled in their request for information as the Liberals try to beat them to the punch by taking pre-emptive action.

"The concern is she's been running OLG like it's a private-sector company when it's a government agency," said one Liberal insider.

McDougald was not in her office yesterday afternoon and did not return emails and calls from the Star.

She was put in the top job after previous troubles at the Crown agency, where it was found that lottery retailers, employees and their families won $198 million in prizes over 13 years, dating from 1996.

"Any CEO that's running a large organization under public scrutiny certainly feels under the gun," McDougald, a former Bell Canada and Nortel executive, told the Star in March.

OLG officials were also unavailable for comment yesterday.

The Liberals were reluctant to talk on the record because negotiations on the future of the OLG executive team are expected to continue through the weekend and into next week.

Premier Dalton McGuinty issued warnings to government agencies like OLG in the wake of the eHealth scandal – which saw consultants paid $2,700 a day while expensing $3.99 bags of cookies to taxpayers – that such spending no longer passes the sniff test and must stop.

Tory MPP Norm Miller (Parry Sound-Muskoka) said the party has been trying since January to glimpse the inner workings of OLG.

"So far, we've been getting rebuffed. It certainly looks a lot like eHealth because with that we had to be very persistent – it wasn't just ask once and get the information. It certainly makes us suspicious."

Miller said the Tories targeted OLG because the organization "has had quite a few problems."

He added that voters would likely see through any OLG shake-up that seemed to be politically motivated.

The eHealth scandal continues to dog the Liberals, who are watching the issue resurface in the St. Paul's by-election.

Sex slave tip-off: 'girls stared into my soul'

Two American policewomen say they became suspicious of accused kidnapper Phillip Garrido when his young daughters' behaviour caused them to feel "weird and uneasy".

Garrido, 58, and his wife Nancy, 54, pleaded not guilty yesterday to 29 alleged offences including kidnapping, rape and false imprisonment, following the discovery of Jaycee Lee Dugard on Wednesday.

The blonde schoolgirl was snatched outside her home in 1991 aged 11, and was imprisoned for 18 years.

During her captivity Garrido fathered two daughters, aged 11 and 15, with Ms Dugard.

The police officers saw Garrido with the two young girls at the University of California at Berkeley on Wednesday (local time).

Garrido was trying to hand out religious literature propounding claims he was able to channel the voice of God.

Allie Jacobs says something about the girls did not feel right.

"They were extremely pale. In comparison to Phillip they were extremely, extremely pale," she said.

"[They had] bright blue eyes just like him, and I just got a weird uneasy feeling.

"I was looking at the younger daughter, who was sitting across from me, and she was staring directly at me.

"It was almost like she was looking into my soul - that's how her eyes were so penetrating."

Ms Jacobs says the girls told her they did not go to school, but were given lessons at home.

She says the younger daughter sounded robotic and rehearsed when she explained a bruise around her eye as a birth defect.

Garrido was subsequently summoned to a meeting Wednesday with his parole officer.

The parole officer, having previously visited the Garrido home, found it strange that in addition to his wife Nancy he brought along two girls and a woman he called "Allissa."

Ms Dugard's real identity emerged during the course of the meeting and Garrido and his wife Nancy were detained.

Garrido is now also being investigated over the deaths of prostitutes in the 1990s.

However, questions are now mounting about how Garrido was able to hold Ms Dugard captive for 18 years, along with the two girls she bore him, despite neighbours' warnings to police that something was amiss.

Secret garden

Ms Dugard was confined in a makeshift prison of sheds and tents in what police have described as a "backyard within a backyard" at Garrido's home in Antioch, around 80 kilometres east of San Francisco.

Police in Contra Costa County admitted on Friday that they had received a tip in November 2006 and failed to follow it up properly.

Sheriff Warren Rupf issued an apology over the missed opportunity to rescue Ms Dugard, saying law enforcement officials were distraught over their failure to discover Garrido's crimes earlier.

"I can't change the course of events, but we are beating ourselves up over this and are the first to do so," Mr Rupf said.

Mr Rupf said the sheriff's deputy who responded to the tip never entered the house or checked the backyard, missing an opportunity to rescue Ms Dugard.

Others of Garrido's neighbours said they had no idea that anything was wrong.

"It's kind of embarrassing to be here this long and not know what's going on. How could that go on under all of our noses?," one neighbour, who gave his name only as Steve, said.

New details suggested that Garrido was able to cultivate a normal public persona, taking on jobs and even allowing Ms Dugard to interact with other people.

A man who once hired Garrido for a printing job told The New York Times on Saturday that he had met, exchanged emails and regularly spoken on the phone with a woman who was introduced as Garrido's daughter Allissa.

Ben Daughdrill said the woman never suggested that she was being held captive or tried to identify herself as Ms Dugard.

Her stepfather Carl Probyn said Ms Dugard appeared to have formed a relationship of sorts with her abductor.

"Jaycee feels that she has real regrets for bonding with this guy," Mr Probyn told reporters outside his home in Orange, south of Los Angeles.

Mr Probyn said Ms Dugard, who was reunited with her mother and half-sister on Friday, was struggling to come to terms with what had been inflicted upon her and experts said it could take years for her to recover.

Gene therapy for the unborn

Successful trials raise hopes for end to inherited human disorders

Scientists are on the verge of ridding inherited diseases from future generations with a new technique for swapping genes between unfertilised human eggs before the resulting IVF embryos are implanted into the womb.

The technique has been successfully tested on laboratory monkeys and researchers believe it is now safe enough to apply for clinical trials on the many thousands of women at risk of giving birth to babies with some of the most debilitating inherited disorders.

Such a procedure would break new ground and raise fresh ethical concerns over the direction of IVF research because it would lead to permanent changes to the genetic make-up of children that would be passed on to subsequent generations of the same families.

This form of gene therapy, known as germline gene therapy, alters the DNA of sperm or eggs and is banned in Britain because of fears over its safety as well as the prospect of it leading to the creation of "designer babies". However, a clause in the new Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, which comes into force on 1 October, could permit a type of germline gene therapy involving mitochondrial DNA – which exists outside the chromosomes – without the need for changes to primary legislation and a parliamentary vote.

Mitochondria, the tiny "power houses" of cells and their DNA, which lies outside the nucleus, is inherited solely down the maternal line. It is estimated that 1 in every 200 babies are born with mitochondrial mutations, some of which can lead to serious, life-long illnesses, such as diseases of muscles and nerves, as well as diabetes and cancer. The study on monkeys involved "renewing" the mitochondria of their eggs by the wholesale transfer of the chromosomes of one of their eggs into the egg of a donor female that had its own chromosomes removed so that only her mitochondrial DNA was left.

The aim was to test the feasibility of taking eggs from women with one of the 150 known mitochondrial DNA disorders and using them to create healthy eggs by transferring their chromosomes into donor eggs with no chromosomes of their own. The resulting egg would have DNA from two females and, when fertilised with a sperm, would result in an embryo which has three genetic parents.

In the latest study, four healthy macaque monkeys have been born using the technique. The scientists involved said yesterday there is no evidence that the procedure is unsafe and that they were planning to apply for ethical approval to conduct clinical trials in humans within a few years.

"In theory, this research has demonstrated it is possible to use this therapy in mothers carrying mitochondrial DNA diseases so that we can prevent those diseases from being passed on to their offspring," said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, of Oregon Health and Science University in Beaverton, Oregon.

"We believe with proper governmental approvals, our work can rapidly be translated into clinical trials for humans, and approved therapies," said Dr Mitalipov, whose study with colleague Masahito Tachibana is published in the journal Nature.

Conventional gene therapy has been tried in humans for 20 years but changing the DNA of mitochrondria would raise new ethical concerns. "This is not a simple form of gene therapy. This type involves replacing genes in the germline which will of course transmit it to the next generation and there are concerns," Dr Mitalipov said.

"We are talking of gene defects that cause terrible diseases. So the only way to prevent these genetic defects is to replace these genes whether we like it or not. We realise it's gene therapy involving the germline."

Professor Peter Braude, a specialist in reproductive medicine at King's College London and director of the Centre for Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis at Guy's Hospital, said that the study involved a series of technically difficult experiments that were meticulously executed. "For the first time, proof of principle has been demonstrated that transmission of mitochondrial disease might be avoided. It is a first step toward preimplantation correction of the serious medical disorders caused by defective DNA inherited maternally in the mitochondria," Professor Braude said.

"The transfer of the normal genetic material from a mother who has defective mitochondria, to a clean donated oocyte [egg] with normal mitochondria would allow it to be fertilised with her partner's sperm and for them to have a child free of the mitochondrial disease with the genetic material of the couple."

A spokesman for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said: "If, in the future, safe and effective treatments are then developed to prevent the transmission of mitochondrial disease, Parliament would have to pass secondary legislation to allow that treatment to take place under HFEA licence. Any specific proposals would be closely examined by a Licence Committee to ensure that appropriate safeguards were in place."