• Chinese, Nigerian presidents satisfied with bilateral ties • Pang Yuliang Acquired German Parchim Airport

Investments from China, seeking much-needed resources especially energy to fuel its booming economy, had reached US$11.7 billion in Africa.
ADB president Donald Kaberuka said in Shanghai over the weekend that Chinese investments in Africa this year would hit US$2 billion.
"Something was happening in Africa over the past six years, which was not happening for 30 years. Economic growth picked up in an incredible way, and we are appealing to African partners to come not just for oil and gas but for other opportunities," he said.
According to Xinhua, China's State Council, or Cabinet, has also approved the setting up of a China-Africa Development Fund with an initial US$1 billion eventually growing to US$5 billion.
The fund, initiated by the state-owned China Development Bank, will be used to support agriculture, manufacturing, energy, transportation, telecommunications sectors, urban infrastructure, resource exploration and the development of Chinese companies in Africa. -- BERNAMA
TCL THS
Document BRNAMA0020070515e35e0001k
MEDICAL RESEARCH

Health

Caucasian DNA boosts risk of heart disease
CAROLYN ABRAHAM

MEDICAL REPORTER

1,341 words

4 May 2007

The Globe and Mail

GLOB

A1

English

2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Two massive and independent studies have discovered a significant new risk factor for heart disease — a menacing hunk of DNA that half of all Caucasians carry.
Researchers found the heart risk linked to this genetic trait held up regardless of whether other well-known signs of susceptibility, such as high blood pressure, smoking or high cholesterol, are present.
As a result, the finding raises the prospect of a genetic test to help identify people at high risk of heart disease and measures to prevent it. It could also lead to a better understanding of the biology behind what has been the world's No. 1 killer, since no one yet knows how this genomic quirk works.
“This is a very common genetic variant which has a very strong effect on heart disease risk that isn't related to other factors that we already know about,” said Ruth McPherson, professor of medicine with the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and lead author of the report published today in the journal Science.
“It's important because we know that a family history of heart disease can increase the risk two-fold, and this sheds some light on that,” said Dr. McPherson, whose co-authors include Jonathan Cohen from Texas Southwestern University and doctors at Copenhagen University Hospital.
Based on research involving 23,000 mostly Caucasian people in Canada, the United States and Denmark, scientists found that 50 per cent of Caucasians carried one copy of an altered stretch of chromosome 9, and as a result, their risk of developing heart disease rose by 15 to 20 per cent. A quarter of Caucasians carried two copies and faced an increased risk of as much as 40 per cent.
At the same time, in a study of 18,000 men and women in Iceland, also published today in Science, a separate research group also identified this region of chromosome 9 as one that could result in as much as a two-fold increase in heart disease risk.
Meanwhile, in a coincidence that has even top geneticists surprised at the odds, three different groups reported last week that this same region of chromosome 9 could also raise the risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute and one of the diabetes investigators, said: “I think this is a stunner. This is like the seat of the soul of the genome. It seems like this one place carries all of that weight for two very common and very dangerous diseases.
“I never would have guessed that we would end up coalescing, zeroing in on the same 50,000 base pairs out of three billion [chemical units that make up DNA]…”
No one knows the full function of this DNA region or how it contributes to coronary disease, which strikes one in every two men and one in every three women.
For this reason, Sonia Anand, an associate professor of medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, said that testing for the trait would be premature.
“The issue is what would [a test] add at this time, beyond what you can learn by asking somebody about their family history? …We don't know what to do about it. Will diet make a difference [to reducing this genetic risk]? What drug would you give?” said Dr. Anand, a co-investigator of the InterHeart project, which, among other things, is studying the DNA of 22,000 people from 52 different countries for genes linked to heart disease.
Still, Dr. Anand said the new genetic link found “seems to be a real association” and called the study “an example of how carefully this kind of work has to be done.”
The priority now, she said, is for researchers to investigate how this genetic region works.
Dr. McPherson agreed that while a test is possible, “we don't want to promote this too strongly.” In part, she worried that people who find out they don't carry the trait might get the wrong message and assume they're safe to smoke, or make other risky lifestyle choices.
“The risk,” Dr. McPherson stressed, “is not absolute.”
The research, for example, showed that while 33 per cent of people with two copies of the genetic trait had heart disease, 24 per cent of elderly people who were also carriers were healthy.
While the effects of the genetic trait are strong, Dr. McPherson said they are not as powerful as smoking, which can result in a four-fold increase in heart disease risk, or high cholesterol, which can boost the risk eight-fold.
Dr. McPherson said, however, that “if we can identify genetic factors which influence heart disease risk over and above known risk factors, we can do a better job of identifying those people who will benefit most from early intervention to reduce their risk.”
Their research found that the chromosome area involved in the new heart risk houses two genes and roughly 66 different genetic alterations between them. Those genes, CDKN2A and CDKN2B, are known to be involved in cell growth and cell death. In their paper, researchers speculate the region might somehow contribute to clogging arteries.
It's possible the altered region might regulate those genes, Dr. McPherson said, or perhaps other neighbouring genes.
Dr. McPherson explained that this altered stretch of DNA has been passed down to carriers in a chunk through the generations – a heritable block known as a haplotype.
In fact, researchers cross-referenced their findings against the International Haplotype Map, the first catalogue of common genetic differences between four ethnic groups, Europeans, Han Chinese, Japanese and the Yoruba people of Nigeria.
They found that while these genetic changes were common in Europeans, some were either non-existent or rare in people of African descent.
Dr. McPherson said the mutations might be prevalent in other populations besides Caucasians, but that their work happened to involve largely Caucasian samples.
It's not the first time heart research has divided along colour lines.
In 2005, for example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration took the unprecedented step of approving the heart drug BiDil for use in blacks. This came after research suggested it was effective only in that population.
But since no one knows why this is the case, many have warned that it might not work for all blacks and that non-blacks might also benefit.
How researchers did it
Only recently have researchers had the technology to rifle through the whole genome for clues to common, complex diseases such as heart disease. Such conditions are believed to involve environmental factors and several genes. Finding them demands enormous samples and patience.
Generally, it's a process of elimination. Researchers start out armed with a large number of random mutations, or single nucleotide polymorphisms,known for short as SNiPs. Researchers hunt for these changes in the DNA of people with a disease and without a disease. SNiPs appearing in patients but not healthy control subjects are flags.
In this case, the Ottawa-led group started out looking at 100,000 SNiPs in around 2,600 patients and controls.
Eventually, the number of significant SNiPs fell to 2,600, then to 50 and then to just two. This happened as the number of subjects swelled to include more than 11,000 people. The two SNiPs left at the end led researchers to the hot region on chromosome 9.
Born with heart risk
In the 23,000 studied in the U.S., Canada and Denmark, 75 per cent have at least one copy of a genetic mutation linked to an increased risk of heart disease which is independent of known heart disease risk factors such as smoking, cholesterol and blood pressure.
50% carry one copy, (15% - 20% increased risk)
25% carry 2 copies, (30% - 40% increased risk)
NOTE: Each figure represents 230 test subjects
MIKE FAILLE/THE GLOBE AND MAIL SOURCE: UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA HEART INSTITUTE
HEART DISEASE A13
Illustration
Document GLOB000020070504e3540002z
specialScienceandHealth,Front

DNA variant puts Caucasians at higher risk for heart disease

CAROLYN ABRAHAM

1,080 words

3 May 2007

The Globe and Mail (Breaking News)

GMBN

English

2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Two massive and independent studies have discovered a significant new risk factor for heart disease — a menacing hunk of DNA that half of all Caucasians carry.
Researchers found the heart risk linked to this genetic trait held up regardless of whether other well-known signs of susceptibility, such as high blood pressure, smoking or high cholesterol, are present.
As a result, the finding raises the prospect of a genetic test to help identify people at high risk of heart disease and measures to prevent it. It could also lead to a better understanding of the biology behind the world's No. 1 killer, since no one yet knows how this genomic quirk works.
"This is a very common genetic variant which has a very strong effect on heart disease risk that isn't related to other factors that we already know about," said Ruth McPherson, professor of medicine with the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and lead author of the report published today in the journal Science.
"It's important because we know that a family history of heart disease can increase the risk two-fold, and this sheds some light on that," said Dr. McPherson, whose co-authors include Jonathan Cohen from Texas Southwestern University and doctors at Copenhagen University Hospital.
Based on research involving 23,000 people in Canada, the United States and Denmark, scientists found that 50 per cent of Caucasians carried one copy of an altered stretch of chromosome 9, and as a result, their risk of developing heart disease rose by 15 to 20 per cent. A quarter of Caucasians carried two copies and faced an increased risk of as much as 40 per cent.
At the same time, in a study of 18,000 men and women in Iceland, also published today in Science, a separate research group also identified this region of chromosome 9 as one that could result in as much as a two-fold increase in heart disease risk.
Meanwhile, in a coincidence that has even top geneticists surprised at the odds, three different groups reported last week that this same region of chromosome 9 could also raise the risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute and one of the diabetes investigators, said: "I think this is a stunner. This is like the seat of the soul of the genome. It seems like this one place carries all of that weight for two very common and very dangerous diseases.
"I never would have guessed that we would end up coalescing, zeroing in on the same 50,000 base pairs out of three billion [chemical units that make up DNA]…"
No one knows the full function of this DNA region or how it contributes to coronary disease, which strikes one in every two men and one in every three women.
For this reason, Sonia Anand, an associate professor of medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, said that testing people for the trait would be premature.
"The issue is what would [a test] add at this time, beyond what you can learn by asking somebody about their family history? …We don't know what to do about it. Will diet make a difference [to reducing this genetic risk]? What drug would you give?" said Dr. Anand, a co-investigator of the InterHeart project, which, among other things, is studying the DNA of 22,000 people from 52 different countries for genes linked to heart disease.
Still, Dr. Anand said the new genetic link found "seems to be a real association" and called the study "an example of how carefully this kind of work has to be done."
The priority now, she said, is for researchers to investigate how this genetic region works.
Dr. McPherson agreed that while a test is possible, "we don't want to promote this too strongly." In part, she worried that people who find out they don't carry the trait might get the wrong message and assume they're safe to smoke, or make other risky lifestyle choices.
"The risk," Dr. McPherson stressed, "is not absolute."
The research, for example, showed that while 33 per cent of people with two copies of the genetic trait had heart disease, 24 per cent of elderly people who were also carriers were healthy.
While the effects of the genetic trait are strong, Dr. McPherson said they are not as powerful as smoking, which can result in a four-fold increase in heart disease risk, or high cholesterol, which can boost the risk eight-fold.
Dr. McPherson said, however, that "if we can identify genetic factors which influence heart disease risk over and above known risk factors, we can do a better job of identifying those people who will benefit most from early intervention to reduce their risk."
Their research found that the chromosome area involved in the new heart risk houses two genes and roughly 66 different genetic alterations between them. Those genes, CDKN2A and CDKN2B, are known to be involved in cell growth and cell death. In their paper, researchers speculate the region might somehow contribute to clogging arteries.
It's possible the altered region might regulate those genes, Dr. McPherson said, or perhaps other neighbouring genes.
Dr. McPherson explained that this altered stretch of DNA has been passed down to carriers in a chunk through the generations — a heritable block known as a haplotype.
In fact, researchers cross-referenced their findings against the International Haplotype Map, the first catalogue of common genetic differences between four ethnic groups, Europeans, Han Chinese, Japanese and the Yoruba people of Nigeria.
They found that while these genetic changes were common in Europeans, some were either non-existent or rare in people of African descent.
Dr. McPherson said the mutations might be prevalent in other populations besides Caucasians, but that their work happened to involve largely Caucasian samples.
It's not the first time heart research has divided along colour lines.
In 2005, for example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration took the unprecedented step of approving the heart drug BiDil for use in blacks. This came after research suggested it was effective only in that population. But since no one knows why this is the case, many have warned that it might not work for all blacks and that non-blacks might also benefit.
Globe and Mail Update
Document GMBN000020070503e353003uz
How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor.
Runge, C. Ford Senauer, Benjamin

4,665 words

1 May 2007

Foreign Affairs

FRNA

41

ISSN: 0015-7120; Volume 86; Issue 3

English

Copyright (c) 2007 All rights reserved.
THE ETHANOL BUBBLE
In 1974, as the United States was reeling from the oil embargo imposed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Congress took the first of many legislative steps to promote ethanol made from corn as an alternative fuel. On April 18, 1977, amid mounting calls for energy independence, President Jimmy Carter donned his cardigan sweater and appeared on television to tell Americans that balancing energy demands with available domestic resources would be an effort the "moral equivalent of war." The gradual phaseout of lead in the 1970s and 1980s provided an additional boost to the fledgling ethanol industry. (Lead, a toxic substance, is a performance enhancer when added to gasoline, and it was partly replaced by ethanol.) A series of tax breaks and subsidies also helped. In spite of these measures, with each passing year the United States became more dependent on imported petroleum, and ethanol remained marginal at best.
Now, thanks to a combination of high oil prices and even more generous government subsidies, corn-based ethanol has become the rage. There were 110 ethanol refineries in operation in the United States at the end of 2006, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. Many were being expanded, and another 73 were under construction. When these projects are completed, by the end of 2008, the United States' ethanol production capacity will reach an estimated 11.4 billion gallons per year. In his latest State of the Union address, President George W. Bush called on the country to produce 35 billion gallons of renewable fuel a year by 2017, nearly five times the level currently mandated.
The push for ethanol and other biofuels has spawned an industry that depends on billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies, and not only in the United States. In 2005, global ethanol production was 9.66 billion gallons, of which Brazil produced 45.2 percent (from sugar cane) and the United States 44.5 percent (from corn). Global production of biodiesel (most of it in Europe), made from oilseeds, was almost one billion gallons.
The industry's growth has meant that a larger and larger share of corn production is being used to feed the huge mills that produce ethanol. According to some estimates, ethanol plants will burn up to half of U.S. domestic corn supplies within a few years. Ethanol demand will bring 2007 inventories of corn to their lowest levels since 1995 (a drought year), even though 2006 yielded the third-largest corn crop on record. Iowa may soon become a net corn importer.
The enormous volume of corn required by the ethanol industry is sending shock waves through the food system. (The United States accounts for some 40 percent of the world's total corn production and over half of all corn exports.) In March 2007, corn futures rose to over $4.38 a bushel, the highest level in ten years. Wheat and rice prices have also surged to decade highs, because even as those grains are increasingly being used as substitutes for corn, farmers are planting more acres with corn and fewer acres with other crops.
This might sound like nirvana to corn producers, but it is hardly that for consumers, especially in poor developing countries, who will be hit with a double shock if both food prices and oil prices stay high. The World Bank has estimated that in 2001, 2.7 billion people in the world were living on the equivalent of less than $2 a day; to them, even marginal increases in the cost of staple grains could be devastating. Filling the 25-gallon tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires over 450 pounds of corn -- which contains enough calories to feed one person for a year. By putting pressure on global supplies of edible crops, the surge in ethanol production will translate into higher prices for both processed and staple foods around the world. Biofuels have tied oil and food prices together in ways that could profoundly upset the relationships between food producers, consumers, and nations in the years ahead, with potentially devastating implications for both global poverty and food security.
THE OIL AND BIOFUEL ECONOMY
In the United States and other large economies, the ethanol industry is artificially buoyed by government subsidies, minimum production levels, and tax credits. High oil prices over the past few years have made ethanol naturally competitive, but the U.S. government continues to heavily subsidize corn farmers and ethanol producers. Direct corn subsidies equaled $8.9 billion in 2005. Although these payments will fall in 2006 and 2007 because of high corn prices, they may soon be dwarfed by the panoply of tax credits, grants, and government loans included in energy legislation passed in 2005 and in a pending farm bill designed to support ethanol producers. The federal government already grants ethanol blenders a tax allowance of 51 cents per gallon of ethanol they make, and many states pay out additional subsidies.
Consumption of ethanol in the United States was expected to reach over 6 billion gallons in 2006. (Consumption of biodiesel was expected to be about 250 million gallons.) In 2005, the U.S. government mandated the use of 7.5 billion gallons of biofuels per year by 2012; in early 2007, 37 governors proposed raising that figure to 12 billion gallons by 2010; and last January, President Bush raised it further, to 35 billion gallons by 2017. Six billion gallons of ethanol are needed every year to replace the fuel additive known as MTBE, which is being phased out due to its polluting effects on ground water.
The European Commission is using legislative measures and directives to promote biodiesel, produced mainly in Europe, made from rapeseeds and sunflower seeds. In 2005, the European Union produced 890 million gallons of biodiesel, over 80 percent of the world's total. The EU's Common Agricultural Policy also promotes the production of ethanol from a combination of sugar beets and wheat with direct and indirect subsidies. Brussels aims to have 5.75 percent of motor fuel consumed in the European Union come from biofuels by 2010 and 10 percent by 2020.
Brazil, which currently produces approximately the same amount of ethanol as the United States, derives almost all of it from sugar cane. Like the United States, Brazil began its quest for alternative energy in the mid-1970s. The government has offered incentives, set technical standards, and