Arsenic found to have firm link to diabetes in US study
20 August 2008 - Arsenic, a naturally occurring poison and carcinogen found in ground water, is strongly linked to adult-onset diabetes, US researchers said. Arsenic contaminates drinking water for millions of people in Bangladesh, parts of Central Europe, Chile, Argentina, and the western United States, where ground water is the source of drinking water and the land has higher concentrations of arsenic. Arsenic also raises the risk for cancers of the bladder, lung, kidney, skin and, possibly, the prostate, researchers said. The US government sets a limit for drinking water at 10 micrograms of arsenic per liter, which is exceeded in the water consumed by 13 million Americans who mostly live in rural areas that rely on wells to bring up ground water, the researchers wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (more)

Germany disappointed over Russian withdrawal from Georgia
20 August 2008 - Germany said on Wednesday it saw no clear evidence Russian troops were withdrawing from Georgia and, in a sign of growing Western frustration with Moscow, called the situation 'very unsatisfactory'. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has travelled to Russia and Georgia in the past week to mediate in the conflict, has said she received assurances from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday that a pullout would go ahead. But Reuters reporters in and just outside Georgia said that by Wednesday there was no sign of a large-scale pullout, beyond the movement of some Russian military trucks over the border into Russia. (more)

Poland and US sign missile deal
20 August 2008 - The United States and Poland signed a deal on Wednesday to station elements of a US missile defence shield on Polish soil, a move certain to aggravate Russia-Western tensions over Moscow's intervention in Georgia. As part of the deal, Washington agreed to meet Poland's demand to equip its army with a battery of Patriot missiles as defence against a short-range attack Warsaw fears. Russia sees the prospect of placing the shield in parts of central Europe that it used to control as a threat to its security. Some Russian politicians and generals have said Poland must be prepared for a preventive attack on the site in the future, a threat that Washington has dismissed as empty rhetoric. (more)

US: Wholesale prices rising at fastest pace since 1981
20 August 2008 - US Wholesale inflation soared in July, leaving prices rising at the fastest pace in nearly three decades. While recent declines in oil and other commodity prices raise hopes inflation may have peaked, some economists worry about the widespread nature of the July price surge and caution it will take more time for that pressure to ease on Wall Street and Main Street. The increase was more than twice the 0.5 per cent gain that economists expected and left prices rising over the past 12 months by 9.8 per cent. That marked the biggest annual increase since the 12 months ending in June 1981, a period when the Federal Reserve was driving interest rates to the highest levels since the Civil War in an effort to combat a decade-long bout of inflation. (more)