Drug plant suspend operations [ 741 ]

Drug Maker ordered to suspend plant operations over medicine mixing error

(Mainichi Japan) March 17, 2010

Drug manufacturer Taiyo Yakuhin Co. has been ordered to suspend operations at a plant after distributing a drug prepared using an incorrect amount of ingredients, it has been learned.

The Gifu Prefectural Government has ordered the Nagoya-based drug maker to suspend its business operations at the company's Takayama plant in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, in accordance with the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law, after the factory failed to comply with the pharmaceutical formulation criteria during the production of its Gasport acid-reducing tablets for gastric ulcer treatment.

According to the company, the irregularity was found in some 28,500 packages containing 100 tablets each, which were manufactured at the factory in February 2009 and shipped out between April and September the same year. Part of these tablets contained an excessive or insufficient quantity of famotidine, a major ingredient in the medicine that suppresses acid.

The production failed to conform to the pharmaceutical formula approved by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, in which the drug manufacturer specified the amount of famotidine contained in each Gasport tablet should equal 20 milligrams, with an estimated measuring error of up to 5 percent. However, it turned out that the tablets in the 28,500 boxes contained an error of up to 20 percent of the ingredient. The mistake was not detected during initial quality inspections, the company said.

The drug maker started to recall the drugs after the problem surfaced during in-house inspections in September last year. It retrieved the defective drugs from 3,116 medical institutions nationwide between late September and October the same year, and reported the problem to the Health Ministry. However, most of the drugs on the market had already been prescribed, and the company only managed to recall about 16.1 percent of all the medicine shipped.

"Those who were responsible for the quality inspection failed to report the problem properly to the management for fear of exposing the mixing error. We will do our best to prevent the same problem from ever happening again," said the company's public relations official.

The company will suspend operations at the Takayama plant from late this month for about 10 days. No health damage due to the drug has been reported so far.

Al-Qaeda man killed in Pakistan [ 740 ]

US drone strike in Pakistan 'killed key al-Qaeda man'

The US does not regularly comment on drone attacks (BBC)-22:26 GMT, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 Key al-Qaeda figure wanted for a deadly attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan has been killed in a US drone strike, US officials believe. Hussein al-Yemeni, a top al-Qaeda planner, died in the strike in the city of Miranshah in Pakistan, they said. He was believed to have helped plan an attack on a base in Khost in December in which a suicide bomber killed seven CIA agents and a Jordanian officer. The CIA's director has said al-Qaeda is now in disarray in Pakistan. 'On the run' A US counter-terrorism official told Agence France-Presse news agency that the drone strike in Miranshah, in North Waziristan, was "a clean, precise action that shows these killers cannot hide even in relatively built-up places". Yemeni was said to be in his late 20s or early 30s and specialised in "bombs and suicide operations", the official said. "He was a conduit in Pakistan for funds, messages and recruits," he said. Yemeni had contacts with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Afghan and Pakistani Taliban groups, US officials believe. The attack on the CIA on 30 December was the worst against US intelligence officials since the American embassy in Beirut was bombed in 1983. The dead included the head of the CIA's base in Khost Province. The Taliban said one of their members wearing an explosive vest and an army uniform had carried out the attack. A US official said at the time that the bomber was being courted as an informant and was not frisked as he entered Forward Operating Base Chapman. Leon Panetta says that al-Qaeda is now "scrambling" In an interview with the Washington Post on Wednesday, CIA Director Leon Panetta said attacks against al-Qaeda had left it unable to plan sophisticated operations. "It's pretty clear from all the intelligence we are getting that they are having a very difficult time putting together any kind of command and control, that they are scrambling. And that we really do have them on the run," Mr Panetta said. He said that the attacks had been so effective that an al-Qaeda lieutenant had pleaded in an intercepted message to Osama Bin Laden that the al-Qaeda leader needed to come to provide some leadership. Hundreds of people, including a number of militants, have been killed in scores of drone strikes since August 2008. Pakistan has publicly criticised the drone attacks, saying they fuel support for militants.

Russian nuclear submarine to..India..[ 739 ]

India to get Russian nuclear submarine for 10-year lease - paper

More on this topic

© RIA Novosti.

11:3917/03/2010

• Infographics:

  K-152 Nerpa: Russian Akula II class nuclear attack submarine

NEW DELHI, March 17 (RIA Novosti)Russia has confirmed its readiness to transfer its Nerpa nuclear-powered attack submarine for a 10 year-lease to India, The Times of India reported on Wednesday citing defense ministry sources.

According to the paper, Russia and India quietly firmed up the 10-year lease of the K-152 Nerpa submarine during Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to New Delhi last week.

With the final lease and training agreements now in place, India is dispatching a 50-member submarine crew, including 8-10 officers, to Russia to train on the Akula-II class nuclear submarine, the paper said.

"The Indian naval team will be leaving within 15 days. They will first undergo intensive training on the Nerpa and then bring it to India on the 10-year lease,'' a defense ministry source told the paper on Tuesday.

Akula II class vessels are considered the quietest and deadliest of all Russian nuclear-powered attack submarines.

The lease follows an agreement inked between New Delhi and Moscow in January 2004, with India funding part of the Nerpa's construction at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur shipyard in the Russian Far East with an initial $650 million, the paper said.

The Nerpa was scheduled to be inducted in the Indian Navy as INS Chakra by mid-2008 but technical problems delayed the process. After that, just as it began its sea trials in November 2008, 20 sailors and technical workers were killed on it due to a toxic gas leak when the automatic fire extinguishing system malfunctioned. After repairs, the Nerpa is now fully operational, the paper said.

Pedophiles tempted by Satan..!.[ 738 ]

Top Catholic exorcist: Pedophiles tempted by Satan, not possessed

From Morgan Neill and Hada Messia, CNN

Exorcist: Pedophiles 'tempted'

Rome, Italy (CNN) -March 17, 2010 8:55 a.m. EDT-

"The devil tempts everyone -- people in politics, in economics, in sport. And naturally, he tempts, above all, the religious leaders, so you shouldn't be surprised if the devil tempts those in the Vatican. That's his job."

Father Gabriele Amorth isn't speaking metaphorically when he says that. The 85-year-old priest means people can be tempted and literally possessed by Satan.

"It's not my opinion: I'm saying that if you believe in the Gospels, you believe in the existence of the devil, in the devil's power to possess people," he said in an interview with CNN.

The faithful believe "that there are people possessed by the devil, and ... in the power of exorcism to liberate from the devil," he said.

And as the chief exorcist of the Roman Catholic Church, it's his job to expel the devil when someone is possessed. Amorth, the founder of the International Association of Exorcists, has performed more than 70,000 exorcisms in his career, he estimates.

But there is a difference between possession -- where the devil takes hold of someone's body and actions -- and temptation, where Satan lures a person into doing evil, he said.

As a child abuse scandal sweeps across Europe, with accusations being made against priests in Ireland, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, Amorth said the pedophiles are tempted, not possessed.

He has never done an exorcism on a child molester, he said.

"I have carried out exorcisms on some priests who had been molested by the devil," he said, without going into details.

"But cases of pedophilia exorcised, no. ... Pedophiles are not possessed by the devil, they are tempted by the devil," he said.

"They don't need exorcism, they need to be converted, to be converted to God, that's what they need. They need to confess, they need true penitence, true repentance, that's what they need. They're not possessed."

But no one is too strong a believer to be possessed, said Amorth, who is employed by the Roman diocese.

"Nothing occurs without the permission of God, and he allows even holy people, even saints, to be possessed by the devil," he said.

But, he added, he sees no evil in the Vatican today: "I just see good people in the Vatican. People of prayer, holy people, I don't see any evil."

NASA March 17,latest "Image of the Day"..[ 737 ]

NASA image of the day of March 17

Mars Express Images Phobos
This image of Mars' moon Phobos was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on Mars Express, a mission operated by the German Aerospace Center. The HRSC took this image using the nadir channel on March 7, 2010, on HRSC Orbit 7915.

The image has been enhanced to bring out the features in the less illuminated areas. Visit the German Aerospace Center page for 3-D and other imagery of Phobos. Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

Τετάρτη, 17 Μάρτιος 2010 6:00:00 πμ