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Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Second Blackout in India Cuts Power to 670 Million People

India has been struck by its second major blackout over the past few days, leaving 670 million people without power.
The power grids, in the northern and eastern parts of the country, which supply electricity to half of India's 1.2 billion people, collapsed on Tuesday.
The epic blackout has trapped coal miners, left train passengers stranded, and left hospitals with no power amidst the sweltering heat and humidity of India's summer.

This unprecedented collapse is the worst to his India in more than a decade, bringing embarrassment to the government.
"We are professionals; this is our job that it should not happen. But today's incident, we appreciate your concern, your anger, it is absolutely correct. If I were in your place I would have also done the same manner what you are doing. But believe us, we are trying hard." CHIEF OF GOVERNMENT-RUN, POWER GRID CORPORATION, R. N. NAYAK
According to Reuters, by the afternoon rush-hour, only about 40 percent of power was back up, but electricity has yet to be restored to the capital, New Delhi

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USZ Army prepares for War Against Al-Shabab in Somalia: Silently Training African Troops

A new report has unveiled that the US Army is “quietly equipping and training” thousands of African troops to prepare them for a war against al-Shabab fighters in Somalia.
US Army Maj. Gen. David Hogg (C) inspects Sierra Leone troops in Freetown during a deployment ceremony this year.

“Officially, the troops are under the auspices of the African Union (AU). But in truth, according to interviews by US and African officials and senior military officers and budget documents, the 15,000-strong force pulled from five African countries is largely a creation of the State Department and Pentagon, trained and supplied by the US government,” Los Angeles Times reported on Monday.
The report added that the American officers along with dozens of retired foreign military personnel, hired through private contractors, are guiding the African soldiers.
“Nearly 20 years after US Army Rangers suffered a bloody defeat in Somalia, losing 18 soldiers and two Black Hawk helicopters, Washington is once again heavily engaged in the chaotic country. Only this time, African troops are doing the fighting and dying,” the report said.
Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital is one of the bases the US army uses to train African soldiers, it said.
Through deploying African troops to Somalia, “the Obama administration is trying to achieve US military goals with minimal risk of American deaths and scant public debate,” the report added.
“The US can underwrite the war in Somalia for a relative pittance -- the cost over four years has been less than USD 700 million, a tenth of what the military spends in Afghanistan in a month -- but the price tag is growing. More than a third of the US assistance has been spent since early 2011,” the American newspaper said.
African forces are supplied “with surveillance drones, ammunition, small arms, armoured personnel carriers, night-vision goggles, communications gear, medical equipment and other sophisticated aid and training,” the report added.
"The US government has done extremely well in providing for us and we are grateful for that, but they can do more," said Brig. Gen Komba Mondeh, Sierra Leone's chief of operations and plans.
"This is real war, and we expect to see the body bags coming back home," he said.
The report came as the US has recently stepped up its assassination drone operations in the famine-stricken Somalia.
The weak Western-backed transitional government in Mogadishu has been battling al-Shabab for the past five years and is propped up by a strong AU force from Uganda, Burundi, and Djibouti.
The country has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
(press tv)
Midly edited by PCF Web desk

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248 human fetuses found in Russian forest: Illegal Cloning, Half Human, Half Engineered

Sverdlovsk region authorities are conducting an inquiry into the discovery of four barrels containing 248 human fetuses in a forest in the Urals.

Regional police said Tuesday that the "discovery worthy of a horror movie" was made by residents of the village of Anik late Sunday.

The police reported Monday that about 50 human embryos had been discovered in plastic barrels at a spot five kilometers from a highway linking the region’s capital, Yekaterinburg, with Nizhny Tagil.

But the reported number almost quintupled by Tuesday morning when all the fetuses were counted.
Attached to the palm-sized foetuses, which had been preserved using formaldehyde, were tags containing surnames and numbers. Police believe that the numbers indicate the hospital wards where the women who produced them had been patients, Sverdlovsk region police spokesman Valery Gorelykh told Interfax.
The police suspect that one or more of the four nearby hospitals are responsible for dumping the barrels.

The barrels were apparently thrown into a ravine, where their lids detached and some of the unborn babies dropped out onto the ground, the police said.

Health officials in Yekaterinburg hurried to say in a statement Tuesday that all hospitals in the city have contractors that dispose of fetuses that might be the results of miscarriages or other incidents. The statement did not specify the companies that were responsible for disposing of fetuses.
The Sverdlovsk region health department said the fetuses could not be from abortions because of the tags attached, Interfax reported.
The Russian Orthodox Church denounced the fact that the fetuses were seemingly treated as garbage.

"The tragic fate of those who died before birth is a sign of the degradation of our society," Moscow Patriarchate spokesman Vladimir Legoida said in a statement.
"Hundreds of human fetuses, found in a forest in central Russia, may have been removed from a local medical university. Police are questioning a researcher, who was fired last year and could have taken the material she was working on with her. However, some doctors say the dumped fetuses could even be the product of cloning."
(red ice creations)
Edited by PCF Web desk
Pakistan Cyber Force
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German Report: Qatar asks to buy some 200 German tanks

The German Army’s Leopard 2A5
A new report says that Qatar has asked to purchase Leopard 2 combat tanks from Germany, a month after Saudi Arabia expressed interest in buying the military vehicles.
The Sunday report by German weekly magazine Der Spiegel said Doha had asked to buy about 200 of such tanks at the cost of EUR two billion (USD 2.46 billion).
The magazine noted that a delegation from the German defense firm, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann had already travelled to the Qatari capital to arrange the deal, adding that Chancellor Angela Merkel was in favor of the sale.
The report angered some German lawmakers, who believe the potential arms deal is against restrictive guidelines on the sale of weapons to repressive regimes.
Senior politician Volker Beck, from the opposition Green party, said he opposed the sale of advanced weaponry to Qatar as the emirate did not observe acceptable human rights standards.
Last month, Saudi Arabia expressed interest in acquiring between 600 and 800 Leopard 2 tanks in a potential deal, which is estimated to be worth EUR 10 billion (USD 12.31 billion).
According to a report, published by Amnesty International, German weaponry, including small firearms, ammunition, and military vehicles have been massively used in the Middle East and North Africa to suppress peaceful protests.
(press tv)
Mildly edited by PCF Web desk
Pakistan Cyber Force
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Israhelli Defence Minister's Decision to Destroy 10 Palestinian Villages

The Israeli Minister of Defence, Ehud Barak, declared his intention to evict 8 Palestinian villages (10 communities inhabited by around 1500 people) located to the south of Yatta claiming that they are vital for military trainings.

Is the Israeli Army in need for this location or is it a card to lay control over the whole area?

The target location:

The communities of (Majaz, Taban, Safay al Foqa, Safay al Tehta, Fakhit, Halawa, Janba al Fuqa, Janba al Tehta, and Kharouba) in addition to four villages (Tuba, Mfagara, Saroura, and Maghayer Ibead) which are still awaiting decision.

The aforementioned communities are 56640 dunums in area and are inhabited by 2500 people.

The area are considered fertile rangelands with over 28, 000 of cattle spreading around.

Before 1967, the number reached up to 55,000 which shows the effect of the Israeli colonization on the lives of people and cattle.

Despite the increased number of inhabitants, the number of cattle was reduced due to closure of these rangelands, demolishing wells and cisterns, blocking roads, etc.

Most of the targeted villages have been inhabited long before the Israeli occupation in 1948; they are inhabited by simple villagers leading preliminary lives.

They reside in simple mud houses surrounded by barns and leading traditional lives while lacking the signs of modernity.

Israeli Violations in the area:

1. In the 1970's the Israeli occupation Army declared 30,000 dunums as closed military zones with access limited to residents only; this meant freezing any development or expansion.

2. In 1997, these areas were classified 'C' according to Oslo Accords; consequently, adding new structures, whether public or private have been prohibited.

3. In August, 1999, the villagers received the villagers received eviction orders issued by the Israeli Occupation Civil Administration. they was completely rejected by the locals.

4. On November 16, 1999, the Israeli Occupation Army evicted 700 Palestinians in the area before confiscating tools, tanks, barns, water pumps, irrigation network; a coalition of 20 families filed a complaint to the Israeli Supreme Court which ruled in their favour and allowed them to be back to their homes; however, those who lost their homes were not allowed to rebuild them.

5. In 2005, when diplomacy failed to evict the Palestinian families residing in the area; the Israeli Occupation Civil Administration launched a wave of demolishing orders for homes and cisterns.

Validity for military training:

It is clear that the area is not suitable for military training due to:

1. The area holds 12 Israeli colonies, infrastructure (water, power, roads networks) which are integrated in the area.

2. The area holds four Palestinian villages that are farmed seasonally.

3. The area is adjacent to Yatta town; it is only 5km away from its borders.

4. Yatta is classified area 'A' while the surrounding residential area is classified 'B' according to Oslo; despite being classified areas 'C', the target area is an extension of Yatta and thus shall not be detached or disconnected.

5. To the east, there exist a huge area that was declared military zone since 1967; it is simple to use these lands for training if that was the real purposes.

Israeli Greed:

1. The Israeli Government has tried to capture as much lands as possible to serve the Zionist colonization project; in Yatta, the following colonies were established:

In addition, 8 colonial outposts were built (Ma'oun farm – Hill 83, Avigail, Kamel – Ghir, Magan David, Ma'oun Old Farm, Ma'oun – east, Mesudat Yehuda – east, Lucifer farm)

An increased colonial activities have been witnessed concurrently with the announcement:

· On July 23m 2012, colonists of Mesudat Yehuda added five mobile homes to increase the area of the outpost.

· Levelling 20 dunums to the south of Susiya and laying foundation for new colonial units.

· Levelling lands to the south of Karmel colony.

· Colonists of Ma'oun, eastern Yatta, completed the construction of residences to the west of the colony. In addition, they embarked on the construction of more colonial units.
(Palestinian news netwrok)
Pakistan Cyber Force
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UN reduced to a Zionist Slave to Attack Sovereign Muslim Countries: Report

An analyst says UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon should be impeached for his move in ‘turning the world body into an instrument malleable in the hands of the Western military alliance (NATO) against independent countries.’

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Damascus says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence while the opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the killings.

The Western states have been calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, while Russia and China are strongly opposed to the Western drive.

The Syrian government says the crisis is being orchestrated from outside the country.

Press TV has conducted an interview with author and historian, Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley, to further discuss the issue.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: The portrayal of the situation in Syria, specifically what we are seeing happening in Aleppo is very carefully orchestrated by the mainstream media. Where do you see its role leading to as far as things in Syria go?

Tarpley: Well, from the very beginning the lies of the controlled NATO media have been indispensable. They’ve been the centerpiece of this entire thing. The most recent example in the last 24 hours a leading Austrian news paper the Kronen Zeitung of Vienna has been caught in the act publishing in their million-copy press run a photo-shopped image, a photograph that had been systematically doctored of a family man and his baby in a street and they had changed the background to put in some ruined buildings, giving an idea of something that simply had not been the case.

So this is now systematic, what you heard before from Ban Ki-moon, I think underlines his hypocrisy, his status really as an imperialist operative. There is no other way to describe him- systematically biased in favor of the NATO death squads that have come into the country, systematically a hatred of the Assad regime.

When you do this at the United Nations you have to think back to the faith of the legal nations in the 1930s. If you let the United Nations become the instrument of US, British, NATO attacks on independent countries, then you’re threatening the very existence of this institution and I would say that is what Ban Ki-moon is doing. His behavior is a scandal; he should resign or he should be impeached if there is a means to do that through the Security Council.

Press TV: Right we’ll get back to Ban Ki-moon’s comments in just a bit but recent reports have suggested that the West is going to increase its covert support for the armed rebels in Syria. Do you think that despite the way things have played out for the opposition up until this point, is this wise? Because this just seems as the West is putting all its eggs in one basket just to see Assad gone?

Tarpley: I think we have to bear in mind where we stand in the evolution of the conflict. On this awful day of Wednesday the 18th of July when we had an assassination and terror attack on one of the main Syrian government buildings, killing four or five generals, defense minister and other officials.

That was the opening signal for operation Damascus Volcano, which is a NATO operation. I believe it’s a NATO code name and that was dependent on a whole series of half a dozen or more converging factors, including many swarming terrorists brought in from nearby countries. The goal was to overwhelm and destroy the Syrian state, not even the Assad government but the Syrian state.

Now that operation Damascus Volcano has been defeated. Some say the Volcano is now extinct. The death squads caught in the Middle of Damascus have been largely dealt with and the same thing is happening to the ones in Aleppo.

If you look at the trip of US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to the region, it seems to me he’s over there trying to reassure the countries he’s visiting, Israelis, Egypt, Jordan in particular, that the US still has the situation in hand even though this much doubted July offensive has been a failure.

And the other factor that I would point to is the meeting between the two foreign ministers, [Walid] Muallem of Syria and [Ali Akbar] Salehi of Iran. I think that’s another important moment. Foreign Minister Salehi pointed out that the Arab countries that insist on destabilizing Syria in these ways can hardly expect to remain immune from the blowback. That is to say if you sow the wind you’re going to reap the whirl wind and if you foment revolution and destabilization in nearby countries that’s going to come back on you.

And everyone in the world is looking now at the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, the city of Qatif where Shiite populations have now come under gunfire by the Saudi security forces and many people around the world are wondering where is Prince Bandar supposedly the current head of Saudi intelligence? His headquarters was attacked with a bomb about a week ago; his deputy apparently was killed in that attack.

There are now reports that Bandar may also have been a victim of that action. So if Bandar is still in command, the Saudis would be well advised to show him at the earliest possible moment.

Press TV: Right then getting back to Ban ki Moon now, his ambiguous statement regarding the true nature of the conflict in Syria goes back to the whole practice of just telling half-truths to the world. But has the general population you think learned anything from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etcetera?

Tarpley: I guess it depends on who you mean. The general population, it’s hard to say. The American people certainly are sick of war; don’t want to have any new wars; don’t want to start any new quarrels.

Then we have Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney surrounded by a group of unreconstructed neo-cons, not exactly the same ones that you had under [Former US President George W.] Bush, [Bush's war-loving Vice President Dick] Cheney but a slightly different set of neo-con handlers and they’re on the full attack right there, they’re applauding [US presidential candidate Mitt] Romney’s trip to Israel where he promises to support [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu no matter what he does vis-a-vis Iran or any other country and that of course means you’re farming out your foreign policy and you’re surrendering your sovereignty to somebody else and that is simply inadmissible. So I think Romney has miscalculated with that. Once again the American people are sick of war.
(Press TV)
Pakistan Cyber Force
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Revealed: Brits in Syrian terror gangs

Revelations by a Dutch journalist who was held captive by anti- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad armed groups in the country show the terrorists are not Syrian people as western governments claim, and are rather foreign elements.
Dutchman Jeroen Oerlemans and British journalist John Cantlie were released on Thursday after being held by a group of Free Syrian Army members for a week.
Oerlemans told Dutch media after their release that some of the 30-to-100-strong Free Syrian Army gang, who arrested him and his colleague while crossing the border from south east Turkey near their camp, had "Birmingham accents".
The gang comprised at least six people with British accents including one with a heavy south London speech tone, The Sunday Telegraph reported.
Reports also said no Syrians were present in the terrorists’ camp where almost 40 percent spoke English while other immoral beings were from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Chechnya.
The British Foreign Office has announced they will investigate the presence of British nationals among anti-Assad gangs.
This comes as Britain, the US, Israeli regime and some regional governments including Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been accused of providing arms and forces to Syrian terror groups.
Revelations earlier this year showed British and American spy agencies are providing full intelligence support to anti-Assad terror cells while separate disclosures told of Britain running covert operational centers in several locations in Syria and training terrorists.
(Press tv)
Mildly edited by PCF Web desk
Pakistan Cyber Force
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"Pakistan is the Next Big Target" - Former ISI head Lt. Gen(R) Hameed Gul on Alex Jones Show


Raymond Davis had uranium which was about to be used for a nuclear false flag attack which was to be blamed on Pakistan. Russian Intelligence confirmed these reports. American Zionist regime is hyping up propaganda against Pakistan and it is very much visible now that we're heading towards a major collision, possibly World War III.



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Monday, July 30, 2012

Horror Hospital: USZ Funded Dawood Military Hospital In Afghanistan (Warning: Extreme Graphic Images)

An explosive Congressional investigation revealed horrific new details this week about a U.S. funded military hospital in Afghanistan that kept patients in "Auschwitz-like" conditions.

The investigation also revealed that Lt. General William B. Caldwell, then commander of the $11.2 billion dollar a year Afghan training program, tried to block the probe and ordered a cover-up.

There are currently two on-going investigations looking into the Dawood Military Hospital abuses: one centred around the Military Whistle-blower Protection Act, the other concerned with Caldwell’s politically-motivated decision to delay investigations into the hospital until after the 2010 elections.

What follows is a very disturbing look inside the Dawood National Military Hospital. It was compiled with sworn eye-witness testimony from the three U.S. Army colonels who blew the whistle on the scandal, as well as never-before published photos obtained by BuzzFeed.

The photos and corresponding descriptions were collected by U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan.

The images are extremely graphic.

Colonel Gerald Nicholas Carozza: "Patients were lying in filth, in some cases starving and with grotesque bed sores. One patient was on the brink of starving to death."

A patient's untreated wound

"The Patients’ Bill of Rights posters were found ripped off the walls lying on the ground torn to pieces 'to allow for painting of the walls.’"

Image: This patient was not treated for three days, given no wound checks, and his dressings were soiled. He was not given any analgesics prior to his surgery, and remained conscious. U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan at the time described his surgery taking place in "semi-sterile conditions." This patient died 4 days later of peritonitis related sepsis without ever going back to operating room for care.


Maggots began falling out of this patient's wounds. He died a week later.

Colonel Schuyler K. Geller: "Afghan soldiers’ families have sold their farms and indentured themselves for healthcare in the US- and coalition-supported Dawood Khan Hospital."

Gangrene set in, making this patient a candidate for amputation. The surgeon refused to "address the issue for days," according to the investigation.

Investigators described this as "a sacral decubitus lesion with high grade tunnelling." There were no plans for surgery for this patient.

Colonel Mark Fassl: "Open baths of blood draining out of soldiers' wounds, the faeces on the floor."

Video:http://buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com/video/2012/07/26/Dawood1-354x266.mp4.

All testimony was filmed at Tuesday's House Oversight Committee hearing.

"External Fixation device. Bandages unattended for > 1 week, soiled, malodorous. Wound management team summoned on insistence of mentor(s). Maggots found among purulent draining fixation sites."

Col. Fassl: "How could we be allowing this type of suffering to go on?"

Video:http://buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com/video/2012/07/26/Dawood2-354x266.mp4.

Col. Geller: "Today, not just in 2010 or 2011, individuals...who perpetrated...unspeakable abuses upon Afghan soldiers, civilians and family members walk the halls of the Dawood Khan hospital unrepentant, unscathed, enriched, and still unprosecuted."


Image: Necrotic non-viable extremity, no clear management plan for this extremity. Purulent material actively draining from external fixation site(s): no clear plan for empiric or target Abx therapy, no cultures, no antibiotics.

Rep. John Tierney: "How many people went through that hospital and saw those conditions and said nothing?"

Video:http://buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com/video/2012/07/26/Dawood3-354x266.mp4.

Image: Drain insertion through and through sinus track. No pre-procedure pain Rx, non-sterile technique done in 'wound care room.

Col. Carozza: "The evidence is clear to me that this was politics with a small personal career driven politics."

Image: Beginning stage of pressure ulceration.

Col. Geller: "When Col Pagel, accompanied by a young USMC Capt. attorney, asked me if there was any reason to believe LTG Caldwell delayed the investigations into the NMH I replied: 'Any reason to believe? I know it for a fact.’"

Col. Carozza: "Lt. Gen. Caldwell screamed at these three officers, waving his finger at them for trying to bring in the DOD IG." Caldwell responded: "There is nothing wrong in this command that we can't fix ourselves."

Col. Carozza: "General Caldwell had the request withdrawn and postponed until after the election and then, after the election, tried to intimidate his subordinates into a consensus that it need not move forward at all."

"How could we make this request with elections coming?" Caldwell reportedly said, referring to President Obama. "He calls me Bill."

Throughout the scandal and ensuing cover-up, the majority of the Dawood hospital staff has remained in place.

Caldwell is now running the U.S. Army North Command and is the senior commander of Texas’ Fort Sam Houston.

Of the above photos of patients, only 3 have been previously published. U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan have submitted approximately 70 photos of the abuses for investigation.
Links to Statements from the House Oversight Committee Hearing

http://www.scribd.com/doc/101136197/Colonel-Geller-Statement-Dawood-National-Military-Hospital-Afghanistan

http://www.scribd.com/doc/101136191/Colonel-Carozza-Testimony-Dawood-National-Military-Hospital-Afghanistan

http://www.scribd.com/doc/101136193/Colonel-Fassl-Testimony-Dawood-National-Military-Hospital-Afghanistan

http://www.scribd.com/doc/101136187/Blair-Testimony-Dawood-National-Military-Hospital-Afghanistan

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Russia will not allow EU to Inspect Ships: Foreign Ministry

The Russian Foreign Ministry says Moscow will not allow the European Union to inspect ships sailing under the Russian flag, and that it will not cooperate with a new round of EU sanctions imposed against Syria.
“We do not plan to take any part in measures carrying out European Union decisions directed against Syria,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on Saturday.
“Among other things we will not consider requests and give consent to the search of ships sailing under the Russian flag, nor to the use of other restrictive measures,” the statement added.
On July 25, Moscow condemned the new round of European Union sanctions against Damascus, saying the measures taken by the European Union “can be considered a declaration of a sea and air blockade of Syria.”
“Russia does not recognize them (sanctions) and believes them to be counter-productive.”
The Saturday Russian Foreign Ministry statement was issued on the same day when Syrian security forces began a major operation from the south-western outskirts of Aleppo to clear the city of foreign-sponsored armed rebels.
There have also been reports of clashes between Syrian troops and rebels in the northern province of Idlib.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a joint press conference with his Japanese counterpart Koichiro Gemba in Moscow on Saturday that the Syrian government needs to “make some first gestures.”
“But when the armed opposition are occupying cities like Aleppo, where yet another tragedy is brewing as I understand… it is not realistic to expect that they (the government) will accept this,” Lavrov stated.
“Our Western partners… together with some of Syria’s neighbours are essentially encouraging, supporting and directing an armed struggle against the [Syrian government].”
Many people, including large numbers of security forces, have been killed in the turmoil in Syria since March 2011.
The anti-Syria Western regimes have been calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, but Russia and China remain strongly opposed to the Western drive to oust Assad.
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Pentagon Prepares Millions of Vaccines Against Future Global Flu

The Pentagon’s DARPA lab has announced a milestone, but it doesn’t involve drones or death missiles. Scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency say they’ve produced 10 million doses of an influenza vaccine in only one month’s time.
In a press release out of the agency’s office this week, scientists with DARPA say they’ve reach an important step in being able to combat a flu pandemic that might someday decimate the Earth’s population. By working with the Medicago Inc. vaccine company, the Pentagon’s cutting edge research lab says that they’ve used a massive harvest of tobacco plants to help produce a plethora of flu-fighting vaccines.
“Testing confirmed that a single dose of the H1N1 VLP influenza vaccine candidate induced protective levels of hem agglutinin antibodies in an animal model when combined with a standard aluminium adjuvant,” the agency writes, while still noting, though, that “The equivalent dose required to protect humans from natural disease can only be determined by future, prospective clinical trials.”
Researchers have before relied on using chicken eggs to harvest compounds to use in influenza vaccines. With a future outbreak requiring scientists to step up with a solution as soon as possible, though, they’ve turned to tobacco plants to help produce the vaccines.
“Vaccinating susceptible populations during the initial stage of a pandemic is critical to containment,” Dr. Alan Magill, DARPA program manager, says in an official statement. “We’re looking at plant-based solutions to vaccine production as a more rapid and efficient alternative to the standard egg-based technologies and the research is very promising.”
The World Health Organization has gone on the record to say that as much as half of the people on the planet could be affected by a pandemic in the near future, and it could take as much as nine months for a vaccine for a pandemic virus strain to become made available. With the lives of billions of people across the world at stake, DARPA has been trying to determine new ways of churning out antidotes in as little time as possible. Now its researchers say, that in only a month, scientists “produced more than 10 million doses (as defined in an animal model) of an H1N1 influenza vaccine candidate based on virus-like particles (VLP).”
Through DARPA’s previously established Blue Angel program, researchers have spent several years searching for new ways to produce mass quantities of vaccine-grade protein that could be used to combat what they say are very real emerging and novel biological threats.
Andy Sheldon, Chief Executive Officer of Medicago , says in the company’s own press release that “The completion of the rapid fire test marks a substantial achievement in demonstrating our technology and the potential for Medicago to be the first responder in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak.”
Medicago’s research was conducted in a 97,000-square-foot vaccine facility in North Carolina that was funded through a $21 million Technology Investment Agreement with DARPA.

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Mystery disease in Uganda identified as Ebola virus

The deadly Ebola virus has killed 14 people in western Uganda this month, Ugandan health officials said on Saturday, ending weeks of speculation about the cause of a strange disease that had many people fleeing their homes.
The officials and a World Health Organization representative told a news conference in Kampala Saturday that there is “an outbreak of Ebola” in Uganda.
“Laboratory investigations done at the Uganda Virus Research Institute...have confirmed that the strange disease reported in Kibaale is indeed Ebola haemorrhagic fever,” the Ugandan government and WHO said in joint statement.
Kibaale is a district in mid-western Uganda, where people in recent weeks have been troubled by a mysterious illness that seemed to have come from nowhere. Ugandan health officials had been stumped as well, and spent weeks conducting laboratory tests that were at first inconclusive.
On Friday, Joaquim Saweka, the WHO representative in Uganda, told The Associated Press that investigators were “not so sure” it was Ebola, and a Ugandan health official dismissed the possibility of Ebola as merely a rumour. It appears firm evidence of Ebola was clinched overnight.
Health officials told reporters in Kampala that the 14 dead were among 20 reported with the disease. Two of the infected have been isolated for examination by researchers and health officials. A clinical officer and, days later, her 4-month-old baby died from the disease caused by the Ebola virus, officials said.
The officials urged Ugandans to be calm, saying a national emergency taskforce had been set up to stop the disease from spreading far and wide.
There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola, and in Uganda, where in 2000 the disease killed 224 people and left hundreds more traumatized, it resurrects terrible memories.
Ebola, which manifests itself as a haemorrhagic fever, is highly infectious and kills quickly. It was first reported in 1976 in Congo and is named for the river where it was recognized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Scientists don’t know the natural reservoir of the virus, but they suspect the first victim in an Ebola outbreak gets infected through contact with an infected animal, such as a monkey.
The virus can be transmitted in several ways, including through direct contact with the blood of an infected person. During communal funerals, for example, when the bereaved come into contact with an Ebola victim, the virus can be contracted, officials said, warning against unnecessary contact with suspected cases of Ebola.

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