Gay men blood donor ban to be lifted

The lifetime ban on blood donations by homosexual and bisexual men will be lifted in England, Scotland and Wales.

Ministers have agreed to let men who have not had sex with another man in the past 12 months to donate from November.

The restrictions were put in place in the 1980s to prevent the risk of HIV contamination.

However, the latest medical evidence presented to a government panel argued the ban could no longer be justified.

Ministers in the three countries accepted the argument and said they would be relaxing the rules. Northern Ireland is expected to make a decision soon.

The National Blood Service screens all donations for HIV and other infections. However, there is a "window period" after infection during which it is impossible to detect the virus.

In the UK, a lifetime ban was introduced in the early 1980s as a response to the Aids epidemic and the lack of adequate HIV tests.

Bad blood

The ban had been questioned both on equality and medical grounds.

The government's Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs has been reviewing the policy.

Committee member Prof Deirdre Kelly said the safety of the blood supply is "absolutely essential" and that any restrictions "must be based on the latest scientific evidence".

She said there had been advances in the testing of donated blood which had significantly reduced the chance of errors and had reduced the size of the "window period".

She said the data showed that "the risk from a 12-month deferral was equivalent to permanent deferral" so "the evidence does not support the maintenance of a permanent ban".

Other at-risk groups, such as people who have been sexually active in high-risk countries, are already banned from donating for a year.

The findings were accepted by health ministers and a one-year ban will come into force in England, Scotland and Wales on 7 November.

Several other countries have already come to similar verdicts.

South Africa has introduced a six-month gap between sex and donation. It is a year in Australia, Sweden and Japan.

Research published at the end of last year suggested there was no significant increase in the risk of HIV infection after the change in the rules in Australia.

Dr Lorna Williamson, medical and research director of NHS Blood and Transplant, said: "The change does not alter the estimated risk, therefore patients needing a transfusion can be sure blood is safe."

'No concern'

She said enforcing the one-year rule would be "based on trust" when men register to donate blood.

Gabriel Theophanous has needed a blood transfusion every month for 30 years because he has the condition thalassaemia. He said: "I just want to know the blood is safe - this issue doesn't cause me any concern."

The gay rights group Stonewall said the move was a "step in the right direction".

However, its chief executive Ben Summerskill said there would still be tighter controls on low-risk gay men than on high-risk heterosexuals.

"A gay man in a monogamous relationship who has only had oral sex will still automatically be unable to give blood but a heterosexual man who has had multiple partners and not worn a condom will not be questioned about his behaviour, or even then, excluded."

Sir Nick Partridge, chief executive of the Terence Higgins Trust, a sexual health charity, said the new rules were "necessary, fair and reasonable".

However, he said it was impossible to say how many men would actually be able to start donating blood as "the vast majority of gay men are still [sexually] active".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14824310?print=true

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Safe nuclear does exist, and China is leading the way with thorium

This passed unnoticed –except by a small of band of thorium enthusiasts – but it may mark the passage of strategic leadership in energy policy from an inert and status-quo West to a rising technological power willing to break the mould.

If China’s dash for thorium power succeeds, it will vastly alter the global energy landscape and may avert a calamitous conflict over resources as Asia’s industrial revolutions clash head-on with the West’s entrenched consumption.

China’s Academy of Sciences said it had chosen a “thorium-based molten salt reactor system”. The liquid fuel idea was pioneered by US physicists at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s, but the US has long since dropped the ball. Further evidence of Barack `Obama’s “Sputnik moment”, you could say.

Chinese scientists claim that hazardous waste will be a thousand times less than with uranium. The system is inherently less prone to disaster.

“The reactor has an amazing safety feature,” said Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA engineer at Teledyne Brown and a thorium expert.

“If it begins to overheat, a little plug melts and the salts drain into a pan. There is no need for computers, or the sort of electrical pumps that were crippled by the tsunami. The reactor saves itself,” he said.

“They operate at atmospheric pressure so you don’t have the sort of hydrogen explosions we’ve seen in Japan. One of these reactors would have come through the tsunami just fine. There would have been no radiation release.”

Thorium is a silvery metal named after the Norse god of thunder. The metal has its own “issues” but no thorium reactor could easily spin out of control in the manner of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, or now Fukushima.

Professor Robert Cywinksi from Huddersfield University said thorium must be bombarded with neutrons to drive the fission process. “There is no chain reaction. Fission dies the moment you switch off the photon beam. There are not enough neutrons for it continue of its own accord,” he said.

Dr Cywinski, who anchors a UK-wide thorium team, said the residual heat left behind in a crisis would be “orders of magnitude less” than in a uranium reactor.

The earth’s crust holds 80 years of uranium at expected usage rates, he said. Thorium is as common as lead. America has buried tons as a by-product of rare earth metals mining. Norway has so much that Oslo is planning a post-oil era where thorium might drive the country’s next great phase of wealth. Even Britain has seams in Wales and in the granite cliffs of Cornwall. Almost all the mineral is usable as fuel, compared to 0.7pc of uranium. There is enough to power civilization for thousands of years.

I write before knowing the outcome of the Fukushima drama, but as yet none of 15,000 deaths are linked to nuclear failure. Indeed, there has never been a verified death from nuclear power in the West in half a century. Perspective is in order.

We cannot avoid the fact that two to three billion extra people now expect – and will obtain – a western lifestyle. China alone plans to produce 100m cars and buses every year by 2020.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said the world currently has 442 nuclear reactors. They generate 372 gigawatts of power, providing 14pc of global electricity. Nuclear output must double over twenty years just to keep pace with the rise of the China and India.

If a string of countries cancel or cut back future reactors, let alone follow Germany’s Angela Merkel in shutting some down, they shift the strain onto gas, oil, and coal. Since the West is also cutting solar subsidies, they can hardly expect the solar industry to plug the gap.

BP’s disaster at Macondo should teach us not to expect too much from oil reserves deep below the oceans, beneath layers of blinding salt. Meanwhile, we rely uneasily on Wahabi repression to crush dissent in the Gulf and keep Arabian crude flowing our way. So where can we turn, unless we revert to coal and give up on the ice caps altogether? That would be courting fate.

US physicists in the late 1940s explored thorium fuel for power. It has a higher neutron yield than uranium, a better fission rating, longer fuel cycles, and does not require the extra cost of isotope separation.

The plans were shelved because thorium does not produce plutonium for bombs. As a happy bonus, it can burn up plutonium and toxic waste from old reactors, reducing radio-toxicity and acting as an eco-cleaner.

Dr Cywinski is developing an accelerator driven sub-critical reactor for thorium, a cutting-edge project worldwide. It needs to £300m of public money for the next phase, and £1.5bn of commercial investment to produce the first working plant. Thereafter, economies of scale kick in fast. The idea is to make pint-size 600MW reactors.

Yet any hope of state support seems to have died with the Coalition budget cuts, and with it hopes that Britain could take a lead in the energy revolution. It is understandable, of course. Funds are scarce. The UK has already put its efforts into the next generation of uranium reactors. Yet critics say vested interests with sunk costs in uranium technology succeeded in chilling enthusiasm.

The same happened a decade ago to a parallel project by Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). France’s nuclear industry killed proposals for funding from Brussels, though a French group is now working on thorium in Grenoble.

Norway’s Aker Solution has bought Professor Rubbia’s patent. It had hoped to build the first sub-critical reactor in the UK, but seems to be giving up on Britain and locking up a deal to build it in China instead, where minds and wallets are more open.

So the Chinese will soon lead on this thorium technology as well as molten-salts. Good luck to them. They are doing Mankind a favour. We may get through the century without tearing each other apart over scarce energy and wrecking the planet.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html

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Swiss move to make its safe-haven less attractive

"Lord, make us a safe haven, but not too safe." That could be Switzerland's new national anthem.

The likes of Greece and Italy might be desperately trying to win the confidence of international investors, but today the Swiss central bank promised to spend an unlimited amount of money turning investors off.

Such are the strange - and yes, scary - times in which we live.

The Swiss have been trying to become less popular in the markets for a while now, ever since global investors decided that risk was "off" and safe havens were in. Again and again, the authorities have warned currency traders that the Swiss franc was not a one way bet. All to no avail.

Buying foreign currency to keep a lid on the Swiss franc last year cost the Swiss National Bank (SNB) nearly 20bn Swiss francs ($23.2bn, 16.6bn euros, £14.3bn) - and nearly cost its chairman, Philipp Hildebrand, his job.

Getting serious

The SNB has lost another 10bn Swiss francs since the start of 2011. Since the start of 2010 the currency has appreciated by 31%, in real terms

But now Mr Hildebrand has decided to get serious. Here's the key paragraph from the statement that the Bank put out first thing this morning.

I'm quoting it at length, because it's unlike any press release you're likely to have seen from a major central bank: "The current massive overvaluation of the Swiss franc poses an acute threat to the Swiss economy and carries the risk of a deflationary development.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is therefore aiming for a substantial and sustained weakening of the Swiss franc. With immediate effect, it will no longer tolerate a EUR/CHF (Swiss franc) exchange rate below the minimum rate of CHF1.20. The SNB will enforce this minimum rate with the utmost determination and is prepared to buy foreign currency in unlimited quantities. "

New money

Central banks don't usually use phrases like "unlimited" when it comes to creating money. And let's be clear - that is what this statement means. It says that, if necessary, the central bank will create an unlimited amount of Swiss national currency to buy foreign exchange and thereby push down the value of the franc.

If tested - and it surely will be - this could be a recipe for creating hundreds of billions of Swiss francs.

Mr Hildebrand will be making a statement on national television tonight defending his actions, as well he might. But the clear message of the statement is that the central bank doesn't care about the inflationary implications of this intervention.

Or at least, it is not nearly as worried about that as it is about the deflationary implications of the high franc, which is throttling domestic industry.

The price of consumer goods is currently falling, and inflation overall is hovering around zero.

Short fix?

Will it work? Maybe, for a while. The franc fell by nearly 10% against the euro in a few minutes this morning, coming back slightly over the afternoon to close at 1.20 Swiss francs against the Euro.

Meanwhile the Swiss stock market closed more than 4%.

Apparently, the word "unlimited" is still worth something, even in a multi-trillion dollar global currency market.

But the record of currency pegs, and intervention in the markets to support them, is mixed at best. Indeed, it was precisely because European countries found it so hard to fix their exchange rates that the euro ever got off the ground.

The standard line from the academic literature is that central bank intervention in foreign exchange works only when it's in line with the fundamentals - and even then, only when lots of central banks work together.

Those conditions don't necessarily apply here.

In terms of the real economy, the Swiss currency certainly looks over-valued.

Wealth-destroying

But investors aren't looking at the fundamentals at the moment. They're not even looking for a positive return.

They're just looking for the least wealth-destroying option available.

Eventually, that will change: investors will stop looking for safe havens, and the Swiss central bank will find its job has become a lot easier.

But in the meantime, the Swiss authorities have declared war on a wall of cash which is a lot bigger than they are, and doesn't have a lot of other places to go.

Remember I said the other lesson of history was that interventions worked best when central banks worked together? There's little sign of that today.

Quite the opposite.

In fact, what we saw today was the next round of a global currency war.

There, the big lesson of history is that they don't produce many winners.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14813825

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China’s Challenge at Sea

AMERICA’S fiscal woes are placing the country on a path of growing strategic risk in Asia.

With Democrats eager to protect social spending and Republicans anxious to avoid tax hikes, and both saying the national debt must be brought under control, we can expect sustained efforts to slash the defense budget. Over the next 10 years, cuts in planned spending could total half a trillion dollars. Even as the Pentagon saves money by pulling back from Afghanistan and Iraq, there will be fewer dollars with which to buy weapons or develop new ones.

Unfortunately, those constraints are being imposed just as America faces a growing strategic challenge. Fueled by economic growth of nearly 10 percent a year, China has been engaged for nearly two decades in a rapid and wide-ranging military buildup. China is secretive about its intentions, and American strategists have had to focus on other concerns since 9/11. Still, the dimensions, direction and likely implications of China’s buildup have become increasingly clear.

When the cold war ended, the Pacific Ocean became, in effect, an American lake. With its air and naval forces operating through bases in friendly countries like Japan and South Korea, the United States could defend and reassure its allies, deter potential aggressors and insure safe passage for commercial shipping throughout the Western Pacific and into the Indian Ocean. Its forces could operate everywhere with impunity.

But that has begun to change. In the mid-1990s, China started to put into place the pieces of what Pentagon planners refer to as an “anti-access capability.” In other words, rather than trying to match American power plane for plane and ship for ship, Beijing has sought more cost-effective ways to neutralize it. It has been building large numbers of relatively inexpensive but highly accurate non-nuclear ballistic missiles, as well as sea- and air-launched cruise missiles. Those weapons could destroy or disable the handful of ports and airfields from which American air and naval forces operate in the Western Pacific and sink warships whose weapons could reach the area from hundreds of miles out to sea, including American aircraft carriers.

The Chinese military has also been testing techniques for disabling American satellites and cybernetworks, and it is adding to its small arsenal of long-range nuclear missiles that can reach the United States.

Although a direct confrontation seems unlikely, China appears to seek the option of dealing a knockout blow to America’s forward forces, leaving Washington with difficult choices about how to respond.

Those preparations do not mean that China wants war with the United States. To the contrary, they seem intended mostly to overawe its neighbors while dissuading Washington from coming to their aid if there is ever a clash. Uncertain of whether they can rely on American support, and unable to match China’s power on their own, other countries may decide they must accommodate China’s wishes.

In the words of the ancient military theorist Sun Tzu, China is acquiring the means to “win without fighting” — to establish itself as Asia’s dominant power by eroding the credibility of America’s security guarantees, hollowing out its alliances and eventually easing it out of the region.

If the United States and its Asian friends look to their own defenses and coordinate their efforts, there is no reason they cannot maintain a favorable balance of power, even as China’s strength grows. But if they fail to respond to China’s buildup, there is a danger that Beijing could miscalculate, throw its weight around and increase the risk of confrontation and even armed conflict. Indeed, China’s recent behavior in disputes over resources and maritime boundaries with Japan and the smaller states that ring the South China Sea suggest that this already may be starting to happen.

This is a problem that cannot simply be smoothed away by dialogue. China’s military policies are not the product of a misunderstanding; they are part of a deliberate strategy that other nations must now find ways to meet. Strength deters aggression; weakness tempts it. Beijing will denounce such moves as provocative, but it is China’s actions that currently threaten to upset the stability of Asia.

Many of China’s neighbors are more willing than they were in the past to ignore Beijing’s complaints, increase their own defense spending and work more closely with one another and the United States.

They are unlikely, however, to do those things unless they are convinced that America remains committed. Washington does not have to shoulder the entire burden of preserving the Asian power balance, but it must lead.

The Pentagon needs to put a top priority on finding ways to counter China’s burgeoning anti-access capabilities, thereby reducing the likelihood that they will ever be used. This will cost money. To justify the necessary spending in an era of austerity, our leaders will have to be clearer in explaining the nation’s interests and commitments in Asia and blunter in describing the challenge posed by China’s relentless military buildup.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/opinion/chinas-challenge-at-sea.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

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Turkey expels Israel envoy after Gaza flotilla report, freezes military ties

Turkey has decided to downgrade its diplomatic ties with Israel to the lowest possible level, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Friday, following Israel's continued refusal to apologize for a 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

The findings of a UN probe into Israel's deadly raid on a 2010 flotilla to Gaza known as the Palmer Commission Report, which were leaked to The New York Times Thursday, have further raised tensions between Israel and Turkey, and senior Foreign Ministry officials warned that Turkey could respond to the report's publication by expelling the Israeli ambassador and scaling back diplomatic relations.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Davutoglu announced the downscale of diplomatic relations with Jerusalem, saying the move was a direct response to Israel's refusal to apologize for the deaths of nine Turkish nationals in the May 2010 raid.

The implications of the downgrade are that the level of diplomatic representation in both countries will be scaled back from ambassador to first secretary. This means Israel's ambassador to Turkey, Gabby Levy, and his deputy, Ella Afek, will be expelled.

A statement by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, published minutes following Davutoglu's press conference, indicated that Turkish and Israeli diplomats due to leave their respective posts as a result of the downgrade will do so by September 7.

"Israel squandered all of the opportunities to end the crisis, and now it must pay for it," Davutoglu said, adding that Turkey's official position was that Israel's blockade on the Gaza Strip was illegal, despite the fact that the UN report supported its legality.

Hinting at the possible consequences of Turkey's disagreement with the UN's interpretation of Israel's blockade, the Turkish FM said that Ankara would "do whatever it takes to implement its interpretation of the significance of international waters in the Mediterranean."

"We cannot accept the blockade on Gaza. We cannot say that the blockade aligns with international law," he said, adding that the stance taken by the Palmer Commission Report was the author's "personal opinion, one which does not correspond with Turkey's position."

Additionally, Davutoglu announced the cancellation of all defense contracts between Israel and Turkey, adding that Ankara would both initiaite legal action against the Gaza blockade in international courts, as well as aid families of those killed in the Gaza flotilla raid in seeking litigation against Israel.

Warning of the possible consequences of Israel's refusal to apologize for the flotilla raid, Davutoglu said on Thursday that Friday's official release of the Palmer Report constituted Israel's last chance to apologize for its raid on the Turkish-sponsored flotilla and warned of consequences, including sanctions, should Israel continue to refuse to apologize.

Unless there is an Israeli apology, "we will put Plan B into play," Davutoglu said. He said Turkey intended to impose sanctions, "which both Israel and other international parties are aware of."

Referring to Israel's request for another delay in the report's publication, he said that Ankara "cannot accept another six-month extension."

Senior Israeli officials said Thursday that Israel would not apologize for the raid and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had reiterated this to the U.S. administration in the past few days.

Turkey is also planning a diplomatic and legal campaign against Israel in the United Nations, and will help the families of those killed and injured in the raid to file lawsuits against Israel in courts worldwide.

In addition, Ankara is threatening to halt trade between Turkey and Israel, which totals billions of dollars.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/turkey-expels-israel-envoy-after-gaza-flotilla-report-freezes-military-ties-1.382181

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Pakistan to ban encryption software

Millions of internet users in Pakistan will be unable to send emails and messages without fear of government snooping after authorities banned the use of encryption software.

A legal notice sent to all internet providers (ISPs) by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, seen by the Guardian, orders the ISPs to inform authorities if any of their customers are using virtual private networks (VPNs) to browse the web.

Virtual private networks allow internet users to connect to the web undetected, meaning that they can access banned websites and send emails without fear of government interception.

Pakistan's 20 million internet users have previously been banned from popular social networks, such as Facebook, because of blasphemous material about the prophet Muhammad. All internet traffic in the country travels through the Pakistan Internet Exchange, which can be intercepted by the military and civil intelligence agencies. The move echoes a crackdown against encrypted communications across the border in Indiaand in China.

The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority legal notice urged ISPs to report customers using "all such mechanisms including EVPNs [encrypted virtual private networks] which conceal communication to the extent that prohibits monitoring". Anyone needing to use this technology needs to apply for special permission, the notice said.

Authorities in Islamabad insisted that the ban on VPN access was intended to stem communications by terrorists.

However, banks, call centres and many other businesses use encrypted connections to communicate with their branches and customers, to protect sensitive data such as account numbers and passwords.

"This is like banning cars because suicide bombers use them," said Shakir Husain, chief executive of Creative Chaos, a Karachi-based software company. "You have to find out who these guys [extremists] are. This is a blanket, knee-jerk, response."

There is strict regulation of internet traffic in Pakistan. Last year, the authorities banned the entire Facebook website for months after a user launched a contest to draw a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. Accessing the internet on BlackBerry smartphones is problematic, because of the device's high-security encryption software.

Recently the regulator made it impossible for Pakistanis to access the website of Rolling Stone magazine, after it published an article on the high proportion of the national budget in Pakistan that goes on its military.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/30/pakistan-bans-encryption-software

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Tibetan monks get stiff prison terms in burning death

Reporting from Beijing— 

China has sentenced three Tibetan monks as accessories to murder for having helped another monk burn himself to death in a political protest.

In the closely watched case in Sichuan province, Drongdru, the uncle of the monk who committed suicide, was ordered imprisoned for 11 years for "intentional homicide" in hiding the young monk, Phuntsog, and preventing him from getting medical treatment.

Two other monks were sentenced to 10 and 13 years in prison after a separate trial Tuesday in which they were accused of "plotting, instigating and assisting" in the self-immolation of the 16-year-old monk, according to Tibetan exile groups.

"This is a whole new turn in the way the Chinese state deals with protest. We haven't seen this serpentine use of the law before," said Robert Barnett, a Tibet expert at Columbia University. He predicted that the stiff prison sentences for the three monks at Sichuan's restive Kirti monastery will only exacerbate tensions. "This is going to be seen by Tibetans as a manipulation of the law to intimidate people further."

The prison sentences were condemned Tuesday by the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, run by Tibetan exiles in India, as well as by international human rights groups.

Phuntsog set himself on fire in mid-March and was hidden inside the monastery by fellow monks to prevent him from being taken by the police. He died the next day.

The death triggered six weeks of the most intense clashes between Chinese and Tibetans since riots in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa in March 2008. At the end, more than 300 monks were seized from the monastery and Tibetan exiles alleged that two villagers were killed trying to prevent police from taking the monks.

Self-immolations by Tibetan monks had been relatively rare as the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader, condemns the practice, but they have not ceased. On Aug. 15, a 29-year-old monk from Nyitso monastery doused himself with gasoline and burned to death outside local government buildings, also in Sichuan province. The monk, Tsewang Norbu, had been distributing pamphlets at the time, calling for the return of the Dalai Lama.

Tibetan exiles blame tensions at the monasteries on persecution by Chinese authorities. Since 2008, monks have been rounded up repeatedly and forced to attend "patriotic education" sessions in which they are ordered to denounce the Dalai Lama and pledge their allegiance to China. In the monasteries where monks have killed themselves, authorities have also cut off utilities as a means of applying pressure.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-monks-20110831,0,5947771.story

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