Gandhi Artifacts on the Auction Block

Time runs out to halt sale of Mahatma Gandhi's watch and glasses Tmes Online UK — Mahatma Gandhi might not have believed in the value of material possessions but one of his professed followers clearly does. Unless a last-minute deal is struck Gandhi's few surviving personal effects, including a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles, a Zenith pocket watch and a pair of sandals, will go on the auction block today in New York, with an estimated reserve price of $20,000 (£14,100) to $30,000. The actual price is expected to be much higher. click to read complete article

Indians try to recover Gandhi items up for auction C S Monitor — Mahatma Gandhi advocated not clinging to material possessions, but Gandhi fans today don’t seem to mind fighting over the ones he left behind. Indians around the world are scrambling to recover the independence hero’s glasses and other effects going on the auction block Thursday in New York. click to read complete article

Gandhi Items Sold at Auction for $1.8 Million Voice of America — There is a sense of huge relief in India that several personal possessions of independence leader Mahatma Gandhi are set to return home after an Indian business tycoon successfully bid for them at an auction in New York. The auction of Gandhi's belongings became embroiled in controversy following outrage and opposition in India. Culture and Tourism Minister Ambika Soni congratulated the people of India and said the government is happy that Mahatma Gandhi's heritage "to which we are emotionally bonded" has been saved. click to read complete article

Bashir Arrest Warrant Issued, Darfur Charities Ejected

Darfur group welcomes warrant Aljazeera — The most powerful rebel group in Sudan's Darfur region has said it will act on the International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, the country's president. Al-Bashir was indicted on Wednesday by the court at The Hague in the Netherlands for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur. click to read complete article

Will warrant tip Sudan into abyss? BBC — The International Criminal Court judges' decision to issue an arrest warrant for Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has been long awaited by the government in Khartoum. After months of deliberation, the pre-trial chamber judges finally decided to issue the warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity for alleged atrocities committed in the Darfur region of Sudan. click to read complete article

A million face starvation as Sudan shuts down Times Online UK — The little hospital built from plastic sheeting and wooden poles is not much to look at. Yet it serves 20,000 of Darfur’s suffering people, offering life-saving medical care to families who fled their homes with nothing. Yesterday it was closed. Its patients were sent home and doctors and nurses told not to turn up for work. The Sudanese Government, having bombed more than two million people into the camps, is expelling aid workers in retaliation against a world that wants to arrest its President. click to read complete article

Gordon Brown in Washington

Gordon Brown urges US Congress to help him save the world Telegraph UK — Gordon Brown has attempted to establish himself as an international statesman with the vision to lead the world out of recession in a speech to the US Congress in Washington. In becoming only the fifth Prime Minister to address a joint session of Congress, he lavished praise on America, hailing it as the "indispensable nation". click to read complete article

A lifelong love affair in 36 minutes Guardian UK — Nobody ever doubted, of course, that Gordon Brown loves America. And yet prior to his appearance on Capitol Hill yesterday morning, you might have imagined that it was a cool, cerebral kind of love: a matter of holidays on Cape Cod spent reading thick presidential biographies or papers by Harvard economists. By the end of the prime minister's historic address to both houses of Congress, however, no one could have been in any doubt: Gordon Brown really loves America. Passionately, lustily, sweatily. And for 36 minutes at least, Congress seemed to love him back click to read complete article

Gordon Brown warns against trade protectionism Xinhua — Visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned here Wednesday against trade protectionism "that history tells us in the end protects no one." In a formal address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, Brown said that any protectionist instincts on trade must be resisted, noting that such policies ultimately make every nation vulnerable. click to read complete article

Pornography

Utah is No. 1 - for online pornography consumption Salt Lake Tribune — Besides its political bent, Utah's per capita appetite for online pornography makes it the nation's run-away red-light state. A study by a Harvard Business School professor shows that Utah outpaces the more conservative states -- which all tend to purchase more Internet porn than other states. click to read complete article

Pornography report in question KIDK — REXBURG - A new report out earlier this week studied who's visiting and purchasing pornography on line. That report originally published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, found that conservative states produce more pornography users than do liberal states. But now the report's validity is in question. The report took the credit card receipts from an on-line porn company and looked at what states people were from who were making purchases. It found that overall, red states were the highest users. And Utah was the highest. Idaho was low on the list. Lt. Shane Turman with the Rexburg Police Department explains, "They've just kind of taken bits and pieces out of the whole thing to bring the point that they wanted to get across and I think it's very misleading." click to read complete article

Iranian police arrest pornographic film actors Guardian UK — Police in Iran have arrested a group of mostly female actors who were making pornographic films, a crime that carries the death penalty under the country's Islamic laws, local media reported today. The arrests were made at a house in a middle-class area in the east of Tehran, the pro-reformist website Fararu said. click to read complete article

China Budget

China announces double-digit military spending boost GUARDIAN UK — China will boost military spending by 14.9% this year despite the economic slowdown, continuing a run of double-digit increases that have unsettled the US and Asian neighbours. The spokesman for the National People's Congress – China's rubber-stamp parliament, which begins its annual session tomorrow – told reporters it was a "modest" increase which would increase capabilities and improve conditions for the 2.3 million members of the world's largest army. click to read complete article

China sees smaller defense boost amid economy woes AP — China announced a nearly 15 percent rise in military spending on Wednesday — a smaller boost than in previous years — as the national legislature prepared to open its annual session with a focus firmly on overcoming the country's brewing economic crisis. The 14.9 percent increase in defense spending is the lowest in three years, a possible reflection of shifting priorities amid plans for a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package and a 850 billion yuan ($124 billion) spending boost to expand and revamp an inadequate health care system. click to read complete article

Wall Street opens higher; markets await new stimulus in China International Herald Tribune — Stocks rose around the world on Wednesday, as investors reacted to speculation that China may expand its stimulus measures. Shares increased on reports that Premier Wen Jiabao of China was considering new stimulus measures on top of the $585 billion spending plan already proposed. An announcement could come as early as Thursday in China. click to read complete article

HIV today

Gel prevents AIDS-like infection Straits Times — A CHEAP ingredient used in ice cream, cosmetics and found in breast milk helps protect monkeys against infection with a virus similar to AIDS and might work to protect women against the virus, researchers reported on Wednesday. The compound, called glycerol monolaurate, or GML, appears to stop inflammation and helps keep away the cells the AIDS virus usually infects, the researchers said. click to read complete article

Stimulus allows ‘discretionary’ funds for HIV prevention Westside Gazette — While congressional negotiators cut direct funding to prevent HIV and other diseases from the recently passed economic stimulus bill, HIV prevention funding could still be available through a discretionary “community-based prevention and wellness” fund, AIDS advocates said. In order to obtain votes necessary for the bill’s passage, House-Senate conference negotiators cut from the House version of the bill $335 million to prevent HIV, viral hepatitis, other STDs, and TB. Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate had objected to including such funding in a stimulus package. click to read complete article

Science & Medicine | Researchers Create HIV Strain That Can Infect Monkeys, Study Says Kaiser Network — Scientists have created a strain of HIV that is able to infect and multiply in monkeys, leading to the possibility that researchers would be able to test HIV/AIDS drugs and vaccines in monkeys before testing them in humans, according to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Reuters UK reports. The strain of HIV -- called simian-tropic HIV-1, or stHIV-1 -- was developed by altering a single gene in the human version of the virus to allow it to infect a pig-tailed macaque, according to researchers. Once injected into the monkey, the stHIV-1 reproduced almost as much as it does in humans; however, the animal ultimately suppressed the virus and stayed healthy. Paul Bieniasz, a researcher on the team from New York's Rockefeller University, said, "If our research is taken further, we hope that one day, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, we'll be able to make vaccines that are intended for use in humans and the very same product will be able to be tested in animals before human trials." click to read complete article

Hi Tech Abstinance for Lent

Call to give up texting for Lent BBC — The archbishop of the Italian city of Modena wants young Catholics to give up text messaging, social networking websites and computer games for Lent. Monsignor Benito Cocchi said foregoing the activities would help them "cleanse themselves from the virtual world and get back into touch with themselves", click to read complete article

Textual abstinence, Italian-style Get Religion — I love stories, like the one about giving up Facebook for Lent from a few weeks ago, in which ancient faith traditions struggle with the advent of modern technologies. How did the 15th-century church view the advent of the printing press, for example? Well, we have another example of the genre—a story in the Times Online (London) by Rome-based correspondent, Richard Owen that describes an effort by some Roman Catholic leaders to get laypeople to give up texting and other virtual communication for Lent. click to read complete article

Potty priests call for technology ban IT Examiner — Italian priests have given up trying to make people abstain from treats like cigarettes and chocolate for Lent. Instead they want people to give up their technology. The average Italian sends 50 texts each a month, so the Church thinks that it will be a great idea if they quit for Lent. click to read complete article