Hot spots draw believers, but not doomsday

As the sun rose from time zone to time zone across the world on Friday, there was still no sign of the world’s end — but that didn’t stop those convinced that a 5,125-year Mayan calendar predicts the apocalypse from gathering at some of the world’s purported survival hot spots.

Many of the esoterically inclined expected a new age of consciousness — others wanted a party. But, in some places said to offer salvation from the end, fewer people showed up than officials had predicted — much to the disappointment of vendors hoping to sell souvenirs.

Here are some key places being marked by the fascination over doomsday rumors:

MEXICO

In an area of Mexico that was once the ancient Mayan heartland, spiritualists gathered in the darkness before dawn on Friday to prepare white clothes, drums, conch shells and incense. They believed the sunrise would herald the birth of a new and better age as a vast cycle in the Mayan calendar comes to an end.

Many people who came to Yucatan for the occasion were already calling it “a new sun” and “a new era.”

FRANCE

According to one rumor, a rocky mountain in the French Pyrenees will be the sole place on Earth to escape destruction. A giant UFO and aliens are said to be waiting under the mountain, ready to burst through and spirit those nearby to safety. But there is bad news for those seeking salvation: French gendarmes, some on horseback, blocked outsiders from reaching the Bugarach peak and its village of some 200 people.

Eric Freysselinard, head of local government, said the security forces had “partially stopped the new age enthusiasts as well as curious people from coming to the area.”

Meanwhile, some Bugarach residents dressed up like aliens, with tinfoil costumes and funnels and fake antenna on their heads, strolling around their village Friday to make light of the rumored UFO prophecy.

RUSSIA

Doomsday rumors have prompted some people across Russia to stock up on candles, water, canned foods and other non-perishable foods. The apocalypse has proven a good business, with some shops selling survival aid packages that include soap and vodka.

In Moscow, salvation has also been promised in the underground bunker for the former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin — with a 50 percent refund if nothing happens. An underground stay was originally priced at 50,000 rubles ($ 1,625) but dropped to 15,000 ($ 490) a week ahead of the feared end.

The bunker, located 65 meters (210 feet) below ground, was designed to withstand a nuclear attack. Now home to a small museum, it has an independent electricity supply, water and food — but no more room, because the museum has already sold out all 1,000 tickets.

BRITAIN

Hundreds of people have converged on Stonehenge for an “End of the World” party that coincides with the Winter Solstice.

Arthur Uther Pendragon, Britain’s best-known druid, said he was anticipating a much larger crowd than usual at Stonehenge this year. But he doesn’t agree that the world is ending, noting that he and fellow druids believe that things happen in cycles.

“We’re looking at it more as a new beginning than an end,” he said. “We’re looking at new hope.”

Meanwhile, end-of-days parties will be held across London on Friday. One event billed as a “last supper club” is offering a three-course meal served inside an “ark.”

SERBIA

Some Serbs are saying to forget that sacred mountain in the French Pyrenees. The place to be Friday is Mount Rtanj, a pyramid-shaped peak in Serbia already drawing cultists.

According to legend, the mountain once swallowed an evil sorcerer who will be released on doomsday in a ball of fire that will hit the mountain top. The inside of the mountain will then open up, becoming a safe place to hide as the sorcerer goes on to destroy the rest of the world. In the meantime, some old coal mine shafts have been opened up as safe rooms.

On Friday a New Age group called “The Spirit of Rtanj” was holding a conference there. Participants, however, said they expect not the end of time but the start of a new time cycle. Locals turned out to sell brandy and herbs.

“There will be no tragedy, no doomsday,” said resident Dalibor Jovic. “It was supposed to happen at 12:12 and I think that time has passed. So, we can now go on with our lives and be happy to be alive.”

TURKEY

A small Turkish village known for its wines, Sirince, has also been touted as the only place after Bugarach that would escape the world’s end. But on Friday journalists and security officials outnumbered cultists. This outcome disappointed local business people who had prepared a range of doomsday products to sell, including a specially labeled Doomsday wine and Turkish delight candy whose “best before” date was Dec. 21, 2012. One restaurant prepared a special “last meal” menu that included a “heaven kebab” and “forbidden fruit dessert.”

ITALY

Another spot said to be spared: Cisternino, a beautiful small town in southern Italy in an area of trulli, traditional dry stone huts with conical roofs. The notion that Cisternino could be a safe haven at world’s end derives from an Indian guru, Babaji, who said “Cisternino will become an island” at world’s end. His followers built a community in Cisternino centered on an ashram built in 1979. Hotel bookings are up this weekend.

Mayor Donato Baccaro told the AP that the beauty of the place has inspired many foreigners to live there. “This confirms that this place has a special energy,” he said.

CHINA

A fringe Christian group has been spreading rumors about the world’s impending end, prompting Chinese authorities to detain more than 500 people this week and seize leaflets, video discs, books and other material.

Those detained are reported to be members of the group Almighty God, also called Eastern Lightning, which preaches that Jesus has reappeared as a woman in central China. Authorities in the province of Qinghai say they are waging a “severe crackdown” on the group, accusing it of attacking the Communist Party and the government.

U.S.

Dozens of Michigan schools canceled classes for thousands of students to cool off rumored threats of violence and problems related to doomsday. The fears were exacerbated by the recent shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, which “changed all of us,” the school system in Genesee County said. “Canceling school is the right thing to do.”

___

Associated Press writers Florent Bajrami in Bugarach, France; Mansur Mirovalev in Moscow; Peppino Ciraci in Cisternino, Italy; Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey; Paisley Dodds in London; and Dejan Mladenovic in Mount Rtanj, Serbia, contributed to this report.

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Michigan hospital blazes trail in fight against fungal meningitis

CHICAGO (Reuters) – After his first day working at St Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor hospital’s newly created Fungal Outbreak Clinic, Dr David Vandenberg struggled to describe to his boss the enormity of what lay ahead. He settled on a line from the movie Jaws.

“We’re going to need a bigger boat,” Vandenberg told Dr Lakshmi Halasyamani, chief medical officer of the Michigan hospital, echoing the film’s local police chief after he first eyes a 25-foot (7.5-metre) killer shark.

The St Joseph Mercy clinic has been at the front line of the fight against one of the biggest ever U.S. outbreaks of fungal meningitis, a killer infection that has been traced to tainted steroid shots from a Massachusetts pharmacy.

So far, 620 Americans have developed serious infections related to the outbreak, including 367 cases of deadly meningitis, and 39 people have died. Of the 19 U.S. states affected, Michigan has been worst hit, handling more than one third of the total cases in the outbreak.

St Joseph Mercy – a 537-bed Catholic hospital located in Ypsilanti, on the doorstep of the University of Michigan – has treated 169 of the state’s 223 cases of infections that can cause meningitis, including 7 people who died.

At one point it was so overrun that 87 of its 537 beds, which are usually occupied by patients with cancer or heart ailments and the like, were occupied by patients with fungal meningitis and related infections.

Dr Tom Chiller, the fungal disease expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who has been overseeing the outbreak, praised the work of the hospital in helping to limit deaths from the outbreak.

“They have been incredibly creative in dealing with these complicated patients,” he said.

In all, almost 14,000 people seeking relief from back and joint pain received injections from moldy steroid shots made at the now-bankrupt New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts before they were recalled in late September.

CDC experts initially feared death rates in the 40 to 50 percent range; instead, only about 6 percent of those infected have died, and the CDC credits the creative and dogged efforts of state and local health officials for keeping the death rates so low.

The first wave of the outbreak involved the most severe cases of meningitis – an inflammation of the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord. But starting in mid-October, patients who had been recovering from meningitis were developing potentially fatal localized infections near the site where contaminated drug was injected to treat back or neck pain.

As they started seeing more cases of these local, secondary infections, the staff at St Joseph‘s devised a bold plan to screen all patients in their database looking for potential new infections that might have been missed in the first wave.

On December 20, the CDC issued an alert to doctors incorporating some of lessons learned by the efforts of doctors at St Joseph’s and other hospitals, calling for increased screening of patients who may be harboring localized infections.

A BEWILDERING FUNGI

Among the patients who developed secondary infections was Bonita Robbins, a 72-year-old retired nurse from Pinckney, Michigan, who received doses of the tainted drug at the Michigan Pain Specialists clinic in the nearby town of Brighton while seeking relief for lower-back pain.

The first shot brought some relief, the second did little to ease her aches, and the third was contaminated. In October, Robbins went to St Joseph’s with a severe headache, back pain and pain in her thighs.

She spent 37 days in the hospital taking two kinds of antifungal drugs.

Dr Anurag Malani, an infectious disease specialist treating Robbins, said the challenge with the outbreak was that there was no medical literature to fall back on.

“No one has ever seen anything of this magnitude related to fungal infections, ever,” he said.

Chiller said U.S. doctors had never treated meningitis caused by Exserohilum rostratum, the environmental mold causing most of the infections.

“It’s just a rare, rare cause of infection.” Seeing that mold in the meninges – membranes covering the brain and spinal cord – is “completely new.”

Initially, St Joseph’s Fungal Outbreak Clinic was started in order to coordinate the care of patients after their discharge, which included overseeing the administration of a complex regime of anti-fungal drugs.

It morphed into something bigger when some of its 53 patients with meningitis started returning with infections near the site in their back or neck where the contaminated drug was injected.

Then came a wave of patients like Robbins, who had been ruled out for meningitis with a spinal tap, but were still complaining of pain near their injection site.

GETTING THE ‘BIGGER BOAT’

“When it became obvious that the number of patients would be a much higher percentage than anticipated by the CDC, we expanded our clinic and started enlisting the help of several other hospitals,” Vandenberg said.

Many of the patients had spinal abscesses, an infection in the space between the outside covering of the spinal cord and the bones of the spine. Others developed arachnoiditis, an infection of nerves within the spinal canal.

The decision to screen all patients in the hospital database who might have received tainted injections was not taken at the recommendation of the CDC.

“That was our own decision,” said Vandenberg, a specialist in internal medicine overseeing the screening effort.

He admitted that the strategy was aggressive, but said that, especially early on, doctors feared the local infections might be precursors to meningitis, making catching them early a potentially life-saving move.

Excluding patients who had already been screened and those who had injections in areas other than the spine, the hospital targeted about 500 patients for MRI scans.

Most so far have had private insurance that covers the screening. For the uninsured, the hospital’s Patient Financial Services department has been helping them to apply for financial support.

“We did over 400 MRIs in about a 4-week period,” Vandenberg said. The hospital screened so many patients, in fact, that the state of Michigan sent in an emergency mobile MRI unit to help.

Vandenberg got the task of reading stacks of MRI reports, sometimes as many as 30 a day.

So far, about 20 percent of the MRIs have shown up as abnormal, meaning that patients have to come back for surgery and treatment.

Vandenberg makes all of those calls personally. Not all of them go smoothly. He likens the gravity of the conversation – learning you have a potentially deadly new disease that requires months of treatment with risky drugs – to telling someone they have cancer.

After one especially tough call, in which a heart patient feared he would not survive the surgery he would need to clear his infection, Vandenberg cracked.

“I started crying. I probably haven’t cried for 15 years.”

SIGNS OUTBREAK IS EASING

But at last, after months of onslaught, there are signs the outbreak is easing.

Attendance at the hospital’s daily support group has begun to taper off. And since the beginning of December, more than 50 patients with fungal infections have been discharged, while only 20 have been admitted, bringing the total number of fungus-related inpatient to 30.

Vandenberg nevertheless cautions that the outbreak is still far from over.

“Every single day of this screening program, we’re finding one or two cases that are abnormal and need to be admitted,” he said.

Vandenberg gave the CDC access to the clinic’s database so the agency could see how the effort turned out, and this month, the CDC issued the alert to doctors incorporating some of the results of the MRI screening program.

The alert warned that some patients who got tainted injections but did not develop meningitis may still be at risk of localized infections.

And it urged doctors to consider ordering an MRI for all patients who still have pain, even if the pain is similar to what sent them in for treatment in the first place.

Chiller said the United States had not yet reached the end of the outbreak.

“Unfortunately, with fungi, the incubation periods are so long and they can remain indolent. I’m definitely concerned that we’re going to continue to see more cases.”

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Jilian Mincer, Mary Milliken and David Brunnstrom)

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Crucial day for US budget talks

30 December 2012 Last updated at 08:03 ET

US President Barack Obama: “Agreement is being discussed as we speak”

US politicians are facing a crucial day of talks aimed at preventing the economy falling over a “fiscal cliff”.

Congress must reach a deal by the end of the year to avert steep spending cuts and tax rises due to take effect.

President Barack Obama has said he is “modestly optimistic” that Senate leaders can craft a bill that could win approval in both chambers of Congress.

If they fail, taxes will significantly rise for most Americans, raising fears of a US economic slowdown.

Republicans and Democrats tried to resolve the looming crisis in 2011 but failed, instead signing temporary agreements which postponed the deadlock until the end of 2012.

Democrat Senate leader Harry Reid and his Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell have been locked in negotiations over the weekend, in an otherwise closed-down Capitol.

According to the Washington Post, they have set themselves a deadline of 15:00 local time (20:00 GMT) to reach a compromise agreement, after which they will convene caucus meetings of their members and decide whether the measure has enough support to be put to a vote.

The Senate could then vote on the measure and allow the House of Representatives enough time on Monday to consider it, said the paper.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

America’s reckless politicians may still take the country over the cliff into an uncertain land where recession looms”

End Quote

But Republican and Democratic leaders remain divided over core ideological issues about tax and government funding.

There is also debate over where to set the threshold for tax rises. Democrats say tax cuts introduced by former President George W Bush and now due to expire should be extended for all Americans except the richest, those with annual earnings of more than $ 250,000 (£155,000), who should pay more.

Republicans want the tax threshold set higher, at around $ 400,000, and for revenue to be raised by economic growth and cuts in social security and mandatory spending programmes.

President Obama is scheduled to make a rare appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

He has urged negotiators to reach a deal, even if the resulting legislation is an unhappy compromise for both sides which defers resolution of some elements under discussion.

The country “just can’t afford a politically self-inflicted wound to our economy,” he said, warning that if they fail, “every American’s paycheck will get a lot smaller”.

“Congress can prevent it from happening, if they act now,” he said.

Some Republicans have pledged never to vote for increased taxes. There are some indications they could oppose any deal which included higher taxes.

If Mr Reid and Mr McConnell cannot reach a deal by the end of the year, Mr Obama has said he will seek a vote to prevent tax rises on incomes up to $ 250,000 and ensure unemployment insurance is continued.

That, he says, is the “bare minimum” Congress should get done before 1 January.

End to benefits

The term fiscal cliff refers to the combination of almost $ 600bn (£370bn) of tax rises and spending cuts due to come into force on 1 January if Congress fails to pass new legislation.

Continue reading the main story

What is the fiscal cliff?

• On 1 January 2013, tax increases and huge spending cuts are due to come into force – the so-called fiscal cliff


• Deadline was put in place in 2011 to force president and Congress to agree ways to save money over the next 10 years


• Fear is that raising taxes while massively cutting spending will have a huge impact on households and businesses


• Experts believe it could push the US into recession, and have a global impact on growth

Sweeping Bush-era tax cuts will expire, eventually affecting people of all income levels, and many businesses.

While some of the impact would be felt almost immediately, other effects would take longer to filter through. This could damage America’s recent fragile economic recovery and alarm global markets.

In addition, the US Treasury will hit its legal borrowing limit on 31 December of $ 16.4tn.

Last week, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner won a reprieve of about two months of time, but the debate on the borrowing ceiling will also need to be properly addressed in the new year.

The tax cuts and benefits set to expire include:

• A 2010 payroll tax cut, the expiration of which would prompt immediate wage-packet cuts

• Benefits for the long-term unemployed, which could mean more than two million Americans immediately stopped receiving payments

• Compensation for doctors treating patients on federal healthcare programmes

• Inheritance taxes are also likely to be affected if no deal is reached.

In addition, spending cuts mandated by a law passed to break a previous fiscal impasse in Congress will come into force, affecting both military and domestic budgets.

The cuts are expected to affect federal government departments and the defence sector, as well as hitting unemployment insurance and veterans’ support.

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Suspected US drone kills 3 al-Qaida men in Yemen

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Three al-Qaida militants were killed in a suspected U.S. drone strike in southern Yemen, Yemeni security officials said, the fourth such attack this week and a sign attacks from unmanned aircraft are on the upswing in the country.

The officials said the three men were hit as they were riding in a Land Cruiser in el-Manaseh village on the outskirts of Radda in Bayda province. Dozens of local al-Qaida-linked fighters protested the drone strikes after traditional Islamic Friday prayers.

Earlier this week another suspected U.S. drone strike killed two militants in Radda itself, Yemeni security officials say, and seven were killed in two other strikes in the southeastern province of Hadramawt. Four suspected drone strikes a week is uncommon in Yemen.

According to statistics gathered by the Long War Journal before Saturday’s attacks, the United States “is known to have carried out 41 airstrikes” this year against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as the group’s branch in Yemen is known. That makes for an average of around three to four strikes per month.

The Journal, a product of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies that was founded by former U.S. officials, says that since December 2009, the CIA and the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command are known to have conducted at least 54 air and missile strikes inside Yemen, excluding Saturday’s suspected attack.

AQAP overran entire towns and villages — including Radda — last year by taking advantage of a security lapse during nationwide protests that eventually ousted the country’s longtime ruler. Backed by the U.S. military, Yemen’s army was able to regain control of the southern region but al-Qaida militants continue to launch deadly attacks on security forces that have killed hundreds.

Also on Saturday, two gunmen on a motorbike shot and killed an intelligence officer in the southeast, security officials said. They said that the officer, Mutea Baqutian, was on his way to work in Mukalla, capital of Hadramawt province, when the men stopped his car, gunned him down, and fled.

The government has blamed al-Qaida militants for similar assassinations of several senior military and intelligence officials this year. The bullet-riddled body of Major al-Numeiry Abdo al-Oudi, deputy director of the security department of al-Qitten in Hadramawt, was found in the town’s suburbs last week. He had been kidnapped earlier in the month.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity according to regulations.

Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Seif, who is commander of Yemen’s central military region, said the Defense Ministry has deployed an infantry brigade in the northeastern province of Marib to stop armed tribesmen who maintain cordial ties with al-Qaida from attacking oil pipelines and power generating stations, as well as to counter al-Qaida militants.

State TV meanwhile aired a meeting between President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and eight Yemeni sailors who were rescued last week by forces of Somalia’s semiautonomous Puntland region after being held for nearly three years by Somali pirates.

The Puntland government says that its forces captured the hijacked Panama-flagged MV Iceberg 1 on Sunday after a siege that lasted two weeks. They freed the eight Yemeni sailors together with five Indians, two Pakistanis, four Ghanaians, two Sudanese and a Filipino. The ship was hijacked March 29, 2010.

Hadi congratulated the eight sailors for their safety and ordered the government to compensate them for their suffering.

Eqbal Yassin, a relative of one of the freed sailors, told The Associated Press that the hijackers had allowed some sailors to phone their relatives and convey the pirates’ demand for $ 5 million ransom. He said he was told by his relative that the hijackers killed a Yemeni sailor who tried to escape. He gave no further details.

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Windows Phone Store doubled in size this year

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Humidity Levels Explain U.S. Flu Winter Peak

Title Post: Humidity Levels Explain U.S. Flu Winter Peak
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Former City regulator knighted

28 December 2012 Last updated at 19:06 ET

A former head of the Financial Services Authority and a founding member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee have been recognised in the New Year Honours.

Hector Sants, who was in charge of regulation at the start of the credit crisis, has been knighted.

It is in recognition for services to financial regulation.

Alan Budd, who was on the first Monetary Policy Committee in 1997, becomes a Knight of the Grand Cross.

Sir Hector said his award was a “testament to the hard work of everyone at the FSA during the crisis, their willingness to learn lessons and to bring about the changes that were necessary”.

Sir Hector began his City career as a stockbroker at Phillips and Drew, later taking senior positions at the investment banks UBS and Credit Suisse.

He took the job as head of the FSA two months before the collapse of Northern Rock in 2007, which was followed by huge government bailouts for two leading banks, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB.

MPs criticised the FSA for its handling of regulation during the credit crunch and accused it of being “asleep at the wheel”, but he has also been praised for his work at the regulator and for pressing banks to boost their reserves.

Sir Hector is joining Barclays bank in January to improve the bank’s reputation with governments and regulators internationally.

He will be directly responsible for making sure all its 140,000 staff obey the law in the more than 50 countries where it operates and that it is held in higher esteem by governments and regulators.

While at the FSA, Sir Hector personally warned the then chairman of Barclays, Marcus Agius, that Bob Diamond might not be a suitable choice to become the bank’s chief executive in 2010.

He also conveyed the FSA’s worries about the bank’s culture, including the attitudes of its most senior staff to risk-taking, tax laws and banking regulations.

Earlier this year, the FSA fined Barclays £59.5m for its part in the Libor rate-rigging scandal, after which Mr Diamond left the left the bank.

Entrepreneurship recognised

Sir Alan, a professor of economics, was also the first chairman of the government’s independent forecasting body, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), but left after just three months in the job.

He was an adviser to Chancellor Norman Lamont during the Exchange Rate Mechanism crisis of the early 1990s and headed the inquiry into whether former Home Secretary David Blunkett misused his position.

He also headed the inquiry into the UK’s gambling laws which led to their liberalisation.

Sir Alan Budd’s career has also linked him with Barclays and Credit Suisse.

He was senior economic adviser to Barclays in 1989-1991, and is currently a senior adviser to Credit Suisse First Boston.

He was knighted in 1997.

Industry and the economy make up 12% of the New Year Honours list, with Priscilla Newell, Chair of the Royal Mail Pension Trustees, becoming a dame and Sherry Coutu, a long-time supporter of UK start-ups, a CBE for services to entrepreneurship.

Harriet Vine and Rosie Wolfenden, co-founders of cult jewellery brand Tatty Devine are made MBEs.

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So You Just Got a Wii U. Now What?

Pair It With Your TV

One of the most useful features of the Wii U — and what could make it a staple of our connected living rooms — is its ability to hook in to the entertainment ecosystem seamlessly. When you start up your Wii U for the first time, you’ll be prompted to enter your television and cable box brands. In a surprisingly painless process (you only need the brand name of your TV, not the model number), your Wii U GamePad becomes a very useful remote control. It will be the only thing you have to touch when turning your system and television on in the future. When the Wii U’s television and video on demand aggregation dashboard comes fully online, that remote will be even more useful as you use it select shows on your DVR, video-on-demand services like Netflix, or live TV.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: 10 iPad Cases With Convenient Hand Grips]

Since the holiday gift-giving period is over, many of you might be fortunate enough to have received a brand new Wii U.

Nintendo’s latest console is quite different from other gaming consoles, and there are lots of great ways for you to take advantage of it. There are already a wide variety of games coming out for the Wii U, so you have a plethora of entertainment options as soon as you take it out of the box.

[More from Mashable: 8 Startups to Watch in 2013]

We’ve compiled a list of tips for first-time Wii U owners that should make your setup and first few days much easier. We’ve included a few games to try, as well.

Are you setting up a Wii U for the first time? Share any of your thoughts and tips in the comments.

Thumbnail image courtesy nubobo, Flickr.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Program helps veterans reintegrate through music

MONTCLAIR, N.J. (AP) — During stressful times as a combat medic in Afghanistan, Mason Sullivan found solace in Vivaldi. New Jersey native Nairobi Cruz was comforted by country music, a genre she had never heard before joining the Army. For Jose Mercedes, it was an eclectic iPod mix that helped him cope with losing an arm during a tour of duty in Iraq.

These three young veterans all say music played a crucial role in alleviating the stresses of active duty. Now, all three are enrolled in a program that hopes to use music to ease their reintegration into civilian life.

“It’s a therapy session without the ‘sit down, lay down, and write notes,’” Mercedes, 26, of Union City, said of the music program. “It’s different — it’s an alternative that’s way better.”

The pilot program, called Voices of Valor, has veterans work as a group to synthesize their experiences into musical lyrics. Guided by musicians and a psychology mentor, they write and record a song, and then hold a CD release party. The program is currently under way at Montclair State University, where students participate through the school’s veteran affairs program.

Developed by husband and wife team Rena Fruchter and Brian Dallow, it is open to veterans of any age and background. No musical experience is required.

Both accomplished musicians, Fruchter and Dallow created the program as part of Music for All Seasons, an organization they founded which runs musical programs for audiences at places ranging from nursing homes to prisons.

Based on their experiences working with children at shelters for victims of domestic violence, Fruchter and Dallow realized that young people too traumatized to talk about what they had been through were nevertheless willing to bang on an instrument or sing — often leading to communication breakthroughs. They felt the same might be true for veterans, or other populations traditionally averse to more overt forms of ‘talk therapy.’

“We’ve had situations in which veterans have been carrying their burdens deep inside for such a long time, and they come into this group and they begin to talk about things that they’ve never talked about before,” Fruchter said. “They really open up, and it translates into some music that is really amazing and incredible and powerful.”

During a recent session of the eight-week program in Montclair, music facilitators Jennifer Lampert, a former Miss USO, and Julio Fernandez, a musician and member of the band Spyro Gyra, lead a small group of young veterans in brainstorming about their experiences.

“Tired of being angry,” ”Easier not to move on,” ”The war at home,” were phrases Lampert extracted from a discussion among the participants and she wrote each phrase in marker on large notepads fastened to a classroom blackboard. As they spoke, Fernandez strummed an acoustic guitar while Lampert sang some of the phrases the students had come up with, adjusting the beat and tempo at their suggestion. Suddenly, a musical lyric emerged: “Sometimes, I wish the past is where I stayed.”

A few weeks later, the group gathered at a sound studio in Union City, where they donned headphones and clearly relished the opportunity to record their collectively written tune, “Freedom,” in a professional studio.

“To see music heal people in that way, it’s beautiful, and the real incredible part is you don’t have to do anything but give in to the music,” Lampert said. She recounted how, time and again, the facilitators of the program had watched some participants start the class with shoulders slumped, hesitant to make eye contact, and afraid to speak up. Through the process of writing music they changed, she said, into group-focused, smiling, active participants unafraid to stand up and belt out a tune.

7/87/8_____

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C. African Republic president seeks foreign help

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — The president of Central African Republic on Thursday urgently called on France and other foreign powers to help his government fend off rebels who are quickly seizing territory and approaching the capital, but French officials declined to offer any military assistance.

The developments suggest Central African Republic could be on the brink of another violent change in government, something not new in the history of this resource-rich, yet deeply impoverished country. The current president, Francois Bozize, himself came to power nearly a decade ago in the wake of a rebellion.

Speaking to crowds in Bangui, a city of some 600,000, Bozize pleaded with foreign powers to do what they could. He pointed in particular to France, Central African Republic’s former colonial ruler.

About 200 French soldiers are already in the country, providing technical support and helping to train the local army, according to the French defense ministry.

“France has the means to stop (the rebels) but unfortunately they have done nothing for us until now,” Bozize said.

French President Francois Hollande said Thursday that France wants to protect its interests in Central African Republic and not Bozize’s government. The comments came a day after dozens of protesters, angry about a lack of help against rebel forces, threw rocks at the French Embassy in Bangui and stole a French flag.

Paris is encouraging peace talks between the government and the rebels, with the French Foreign Ministry noting in a statement that negotiations are due to “begin shortly in Libreville (Gabon).” But it was not immediately clear what, if any, dates have been set for those talks.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, meanwhile, spoke via phone with Bozize, asking the president to take responsibility for the safety of French nationals and diplomatic missions in Central African Republic.

U.S. officials said Thursday the State Department would close its embassy in the country and ordered its diplomatic team to leave. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were unauthorized to discuss the evacuation publicly.

The United Nations Security Council issued a press statement late Thursday reiterating its concern about the situation in the country and condemned the attacks.

“The members of the Security Council reiterate their demand that the armed groups immediately cease hostilities, withdraw from captured cities and cease any further advance towards the city of Bangui,” the statement reads.

Bozize’s government earlier reached out to longtime ally Chad, which pledged to send 2,000 troops to bolster Central African Republic’s own forces. But it was unclear if the Chadian troops had all arrived, and even then, it is far from certain if the combined government forces could withstand rebel attacks.

At least four different rebel groups are involved, though their overall numbers could not immediately be confirmed.

Central African Republic, a landlocked nation of some 4.4 million people, is roughly the size of France. It has suffered decades of army revolts, coups and rebellions since gaining independence in 1960 and remains one of the poorest countries in the world.

The rebels behind the most recent instability signed a 2007 peace accord allowing them to join the regular army, but insurgent leaders say the deal wasn’t fully implemented.

Already, the rebel forces have seized at least 10 towns across the sparsely populated north of the country, and residents in the capital now fear the insurgents could attack at any time, despite assurances by rebel leaders that they are willing to engage in dialogue instead of attacking Bangui.

The rebels have claimed that their actions are justified in light of the “thirst for justice, for peace, for security and for economic development of the people of Central African Republic.”

Despite Central African Republic’s wealth of gold, diamonds, timber and uranium, the government remains perpetually cash-strapped. Filip Hilgert, a researcher with Belgium-based International Peace Information Service, said rebel groups are unhappy because they feel the government doesn’t invest in their areas.

“The main thing they say is that the north of the country, and especially in their case the northeast, has always been neglected by the central government in all ways,” he said.

But the rebels also are demanding that the government make payments to ex-combatants, suggesting that their motives may also be for personal financial gain.

Bozize, a former military commander, came to power in a 2003 rebel war that ousted his predecessor, Ange-Felix Patasse. In his address Thursday, Bozize said he remained open to dialogue with the rebels, but he also accused them and their allies of financial greed.

Those allies, he implied, are outside Central African Republic.

“For me, there are individuals who are being manipulated by an outside hand, dreaming of exploiting the rich Central African Republic soil,” he said. “They want only to stop us from benefiting from our oil, our diamonds, our uranium and our gold.”

___

Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris contributed to this report.

Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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