Male circumcision reduces HIV risk by half

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Circumcising adult men may cut in half their risk of getting the AIDS virus through heterosexual intercourse, the U.S. government announced Wednesday, as it shut down two studies in Africa testing the link.

The National Institutes of Health closed the studies in Kenya and Uganda early, when safety monitors took a look at initial results this week and spotted the protection. The studies' uncircumcised men are being offered the chance to undergo the procedure.

The link between male circumcision and HIV prevention was noted as long ago as the late 1980s. The first major clinical trial, of 3,000 men in South Africa, found last year that circumcision cut the HIV risk by 60 percent.

Still, many AIDS specialists had been awaiting the NIH's results as a final confirmation.

"Male circumcision can lower both an individual's risk of infection, and hopefully the rate of HIV spread through the community," said AIDS expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

But it's not perfect protection, Fauci stressed. Men who become circumcised must not quit using condoms nor take other risks -- and circumcision offers no protection from HIV acquired through anal sex or injection drug use, he noted.

"It's not a magic bullet, but a potentially important intervention," agreed Dr. Kevin De Cock of the World Health Organization.

Male circumcision is common at birth in the United States. But in sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than half of the world's almost 40 million HIV-infected people, there are large swaths of populations where male circumcision is rare.

The WHO plans an international meeting early next year to discuss the studies' results and how to translate them into policies that promote safe male circumcision -- done by trained health workers with sterile equipment -- while teaching men that it won't make them invulnerable.

Why would male circumcision play a role? Cells in the foreskin of the penis are particularly susceptible to the HIV virus, Fauci explained. Also, the foreskin is more fragile than the tougher skin surrounding it, providing a surface that the virus could penetrate more easily.

Researchers enrolled 2,784 HIV-negative men in Kisumu, Kenya, and 4,996 HIV-negative men in Rakai, Uganda, into the studies. Some were circumcised; others were just monitored.

Over two years, 22 of the circumcised Kenyans became infected with HIV compared with 47 uncircumcised men, a 53 percent reduction. In Uganda, 22 circumcised men became infected vs. 43 of the uncircumcised, a 48 percent reduction.

The researchers are offering all of the studies' uncircumcised men the chance to undergo the procedure, and 80 percent of the uncircumcised Ugandans already have agreed, said lead researcher Ronald Gray of Johns Hopkins University.

Side effects were rare, including some mostly mild infections that were easily treated. The rate of side effects was comparable to those seen in circumcised U.S. infants, said Robert Bailey of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who led the Kenyan trial.

Shell pulls families from Nigeria after car bomb

LAGOS (Reuters) - The largest oil operator in Nigeria, Royal Dutch Shell, began evacuating hundreds of expatriate staff dependants from the Niger Delta on Thursday after militants planted a car bomb in a residential compound, the company said.

The withdrawal began hours after armed militants stormed an oil facility operated by France's Total in the delta's Rivers state, killing three people, police said.

Shell's pullout involves about 400 foreign family members from residential compounds in Port Harcourt, Warri and Bonny Island. Staff will stay put and oil and gas production will not be affected, officials said.

"Dependants of expatriate staff are being relocated as a precautionary measure because of the explosion," said Shell spokesman Bisi Ojediran.

A senior Shell executive added: "We are not sure if this thing is going to deteriorate. If it deteriorates we will have fewer people to contend with."

Despite the attack on the Total facility, oil production at the 35,000 barrel-a-day Obagi field in Rivers State was unaffected, a company source said.

Militancy and crime have risen dramatically this year in the vast wetlands region, which is home to all the
OPEC member nation's oil and gas resources.

LAST STRAW

Attacks on oil facilities and kidnappings of workers have become an almost a weekly occurrence in the world's eighth largest oil exporter. But Monday's car bomb attack in the car park of a Shell residential compound in the region's largest city Port Harcourt notched up the pressure.

No one was killed or injured, but nine cars were damaged.

Industry executives had been expecting security to decline before a landmark poll next April, because elections often reignite long-standing power struggles between rival clans and militias in the remote, lawless region.

Italian oil company Agip, a unit of ENI, has already transferred the families of its workers from the delta to Lagos. Militants also detonated a car bomb at the perimeter fence of its Port Harcourt headquarters on Monday.

In February, Shell shut down its entire western delta operations after a series of militant attacks and kidnappings, cutting Nigerian oil output by about a fifth.

Militants fighting for more control over the region's oil wealth are still holding four foreign oil workers -- three Italians and one Lebanese -- after an attack on an Agip oil export terminal on December 7.

It accused Agip of offering ransoms for the workers on Wednesday and vowed to kill the four men rather than free them for cash.

Criminal attacks against the industry are also common, often sponsored by local community chiefs seeking ransoms or other benefits from Western oil operators.

Unidentified gunmen are holding five Shell workers at a company logistics base after invading the facility on December 14. They argue that the company owes the local community almost $1 million.

The mounting chaos is rooted in widespread poverty and decades of neglect by the Nigerian government, which has failed to convert the delta's oil wealth into local jobs or development.

Hybrid marijuana found in Mexico

By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer Wed Dec 20, 8:29 PM ET

LAZARO CARDENAS, Mexico - Soldiers trying to seize control of one Mexico's top drug-producing regions found the countryside teeming with a new hybrid marijuana plant that can be cultivated year-round and cannot be killed with herbicides.

Soldiers fanned out across some of the new fields Tuesday, pulling up plants by the root and burning them, as helicopter gunships clattered overhead to give them cover from a raging drug war in the western state of Michoacan. The plants' roots survive if they are doused with herbicide, said army Gen. Manuel Garcia.

"These plants have been genetically improved," he told a handful of journalists allowed to accompany soldiers on a daylong raid of some 70 marijuana fields. "Before we could cut the plant and destroy it, but this plant will come back to life unless it's taken out by the roots."

The new plants, known as "Colombians," mature in about two months and can be planted at any time of year, meaning authorities will no longer be able to time raids to coincide with twice-yearly harvests.

The hybrid first appeared in Mexico two years ago but has become the plant of choice for drug traffickers Michoacan, a remote mountainous region that lends to itself to drug production.

Yields are so high that traffickers can now produce as much marijuana on a plot the size of a football field as they used to harvest in 10 to 12 acres. That makes for smaller, harder-to-detect fields, though some discovered Tuesday had sophisticated irrigation systems with sprinklers, pumps and thousands of yards of tubing.

"For each 100 (marijuana plots) that you spot from the air, there are 300 to 500 more that you discover once you get on the ground," Garcia said.

The raids were part of President Felipe Calderon's new offensive to restore order in his home state of Michoacan and fight drug violence that has claimed more than 2,000 lives in Mexico this year.

In Michoacan, officials say the Valencia and Gulf cartels have been battling over lucrative marijuana plantations and smuggling routes for cocaine and methamphetamine to the United States. In one incident, gunmen stormed into a bar and dumped five human heads on the dance floor.

The president, who took office Dec. 1, sent 7,000 soldiers and federal officers to Michoacan last week.

Officials have arrested 45 people, including several suspected leaders of the feuding cartels. They also seized three yachts, 2.2 pounds of gold, bulletproof vests, military equipment and shirts with federal and municipal police logos. More than 18,000 people have been searched, along with 8,000 vehicles and numerous foreign and national boats.

"We are determined to shut down delinquency and stop crime in Mexico because it is endangering the lives of all Mexicans, of our families," Calderon said, calling the operation a "success" so far.

In the past week, soldiers and federal police have found 1,795 marijuana fields covering 585 acres in Michoacan, security officials said.

Officials estimate the raids could cost the cartels up to $626 million, counting the value of plants that have been destroyed and drugs that could have been produced with seized opium poppies and marijuana seeds.

On Sunday, federal authorities announced the capture of suspected drug lord Elias Valencia, the most significant arrest since the operation began.

Calderon's predecessor,
Vicente Fox, started out with enthusiastic U.S. applause for his own fight against drug trafficking. U.S. officials called the arrest of drug bosses early in his six-year term unprecedented, while Fox boasted that his administration had destroyed 43,900 acres of marijuana and poppy plantations in its first six months and more than tripled drug seizures.

Yet drug violence has spiked across the country in recent years, with gangs fighting over control of routes following the arrest of drug lords, authorities say.

Mexico has also continued to struggle with corruption among its law enforcement ranks. Garcia said authorities did not tell soldiers where they were being sent on raids and banned the use of cell phones and radios.

52 new species of animals and plants

By ELIANE ENGELER, Associated Press Writer Mon Dec 18, 9:28 PM ET

GENEVA - Scientists have discovered at least 52 new species of animals and plants on the southeast Asian island of Borneo since 2005, including a catfish with protruding teeth and suction cups on its belly to help it stick to rocks, WWF International said Tuesday.

"The more we look the more we find," said Stuart Chapman, WWF International coordinator for the study of the "Heart of Borneo," a 85,000-square-mile rain forest in the center of the island where several of the new species were found. "These discoveries reaffirm Borneo's position as one of the most important centers of biodiversity in the world."

Much of Borneo, which is shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and the sultanate of Brunei, is covered by one of the world's last remaining rain forests.

The discoveries bring the total number of species newly identified on the island to more than 400 since 1996, according to WWF, known in North America as the World Wildlife Fund.

Other creatures discovered between July 2005 and September 2006 were six Siamese fighting fish, whose unique colors and markings distinguish them from close relatives, and a tree frog with bright green eyes.

The catfish, which can be identified by its pretty color pattern, is named glyptothorax exodon, a reference to the teeth that can be seen even when the its mouth is closed. The suction cups on its belly enable it to stick to smooth stones while facing the current of Indonesia's turbulent Kapuas River system.

On the Malaysian part of the island, slow-flowing blackwater streams and peat swamps are home to the paedocypris micromegethes, which is 0.35 inch long.

The creature, which gets its name from the Greek words for children and small, is tinier than all other vertebrate species on Earth except for its slightly more minuscule cousin, a 0.31-inch-long fish found on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, according to WWF.

The discoveries further highlight the need to conserve the habitat and species of Borneo, where the rain forest continues to be threatened by rubber, palm oil and pulp production, WWF said.

"The remote and inaccessible forests in the Heart of Borneo are one of the world's final frontiers for science, and many new species continue to be discovered here," said Chapman.

He added that the forests were also vital because they were the source the island's major rivers acting as a natural break to fires burning in the lowlands this year.

Jane Smart, who heads the World Conservation Union's species program, said the discovery of 52 species within a year in Borneo was a "realistic" number given that scientists guess there are about 15 million species on Earth. "There are still many more species that remain to be discovered there," she said.