AP IMPACT: Big Pharma cashes in on HGH abuse


An Associated Press investigation shows that a federal crackdown on illicit foreign supplies of human growth hormone has failed to stop rampant misuse, and instead has driven record sales of the drug by some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies.


The crackdown, which began in 2006, reduced the illegal flow of unregulated supplies from China, India and Mexico. But since then, Big Pharma has been satisfying the steady desires of U.S. users and abusers, including many who take the drug in the false hope of delaying aging.


An AP analysis of pharmaceutical company data shows that from 2005 to 2011, inflation-adjusted sales of HGH were up 69 percent. During the same period, sales of the average prescription drug rose 12 percent.


Under U.S. law, HGH can only be dispensed for very rare conditions.


EDITOR'S NOTE _ Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the second of a two-part series.


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Fiscal Cliff 'Plan B' Is Dead: Now What?


Dec 20, 2012 11:00pm







The defeat of his Plan B — Republicans pulled it when it became clear it would be voted down — is a big defeat for Speaker of the House John Boehner.  It demonstrates definitively that there is no fiscal cliff deal that can pass the House on Republican votes alone.


Boehner could not even muster the votes to pass something that would only allow tax rates on those making more than $1 million to go up.


Boehner’s Plan B ran into opposition from conservative and tea party groups -including Heritage Action, Freedom Works and the Club for Growth – but it became impossible to pass it after Senate Democrats vowed not to take up the bill and the president threatened to veto it.  Conservative Republicans saw no reason to vote for a bill conservative activists opposed – especially if it had no hopes of going anywhere anyway.


Plan B is dead.


Now what?


House Republicans say it is now up to the Senate to act.  Senate Democrats say it is now up to Boehner to reach an agreement with President Obama.


Each side is saying the other must move.


The bottom line:  The only plausible solution is for President Obama and Speaker Boehner to do what they have failed repeatedly to do:  come up with a truly bi-partisan deal.


The prospects look grimmer than ever. It will be interesting to see if the markets react.



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State Department security chief leaves post over Benghazi


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday its security chief had resigned from his post and three other officials had been relieved of their duties following a scathing official inquiry into the September 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.


Eric Boswell has resigned effective immediately as assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a terse statement. A second official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Boswell had not left the department entirely and remained a career official.


Nuland said that Boswell, and the three other officials, had all been put on administrative leave "pending further action."


An official panel that investigated the incident concluded that the Benghazi mission was completely unprepared to deal with the attack, which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.


The unclassified version of the report, which was released on Tuesday, cited "leadership and management" deficiencies, poor coordination among officials and "real confusion" in Washington and in the field over who had the authority to make decisions on policy and security concerns.


"The ARB identified the performance of four officials, three in the Bureau of the Diplomatic Security and one in the Bureau of (Near Eastern) Affairs," Nuland said in her statement, referring to the panel known as an Accountability Review Board.


Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accepted Boswell's decision to resign effective immediately, the spokeswoman said.


Earlier, a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Boswell, one of his deputies, Charlene Lamb, and a third unnamed official has been asked to resign. The Associated Press first reported that three officials had resigned.


PANEL STOPS SHORT OF BLAMING CLINTON


The Benghazi incident appeared likely to tarnish Clinton's four-year tenure as secretary of state but the report did not fault her specifically and the officials who led the review stopped short of blaming her.


"We did conclude that certain State Department bureau-level senior officials in critical positions of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of leadership and management ability appropriate for senior ranks," retired Admiral Michael Mullen, one of the leaders of the inquiry, told reporters on Wednesday.


The panel's chair, retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering, said it had determined that responsibility for security shortcomings in Benghazi belonged at levels lower than Clinton's office.


"We fixed (responsibility) at the assistant secretary level, which is, in our view, the appropriate place to look for where the decision-making in fact takes place, where - if you like - the rubber hits the road," Pickering said after closed-door meetings with congressional committees.


The panel's report and the comments by its two lead authors suggested that Clinton, who accepted responsibility for the incident in a television interview about a month after the Benghazi attack, would not be held personally culpable.


Pickering and Mullen spoke to the media after briefing members of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee behind closed doors on classified elements of their report.


Clinton had been expected to appear at an open hearing on Benghazi on Thursday, but is recuperating after suffering a concussion, dehydration and a stomach bug last week. She will instead be represented by her two top deputies.


Clinton, who intends to step down in January, said in a letter accompanying the review that she would adopt all of its recommendations, which include stepping up security staffing and requesting more money to fortify U.S. facilities.


The National Defense Authorization Act for 2013, which is expected to go to Congress for final approval this week, includes a measure directing the Pentagon to increase the Marine Corps presence at diplomatic facilities by up to 1,000 Marines.


Some Capitol Hill Republicans who had criticized the Obama administration's handling of the Benghazi attacks said they were impressed by the report.


"It was very thorough," said Senator Johnny Isakson. Senator John Barrasso said: "It was very, very critical of major failures at the State Department at very high levels." Both spoke after the closed-door briefing.


Others, however, took a harsher line and called for Clinton to testify as soon as she is able.


"The report makes clear the massive failure of the State Department at all levels, including senior leadership, to take action to protect our government employees abroad," Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.


Senator Bob Corker, who will be the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the new Congress is seated early next year, said Clinton should testify about Benghazi before her replacement is confirmed by the Senate.


Republicans have focused much of their firepower on U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who appeared on TV talk shows after the attack and suggested it was the result of a spontaneous protest rather than a premeditated attack.


The report concluded that there was no such protest.


Rice, widely seen as President Barack Obama's top pick to succeed Clinton, withdrew her name from consideration last week.


(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Christopher Wilson)



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Park Geun-Hye: South Korea's president-elect with history






SEOUL: Park Geun-Hye's historic election victory that will see her installed as South Korea's first woman president of a still male-dominated nation caps a political career founded in privilege and personal tragedy.

One might assume Park's upbringing to be one of privilege, having lived in the presidential Blue House as a child and served there after her mother's murder as first lady to her later-assassinated father.

The Daegu native was just nine years old when her father, Park Chung-Hee, came to power in 1961 in a military coup that set the stage for 18 years of authoritarian rule.

Wednesday's presidential result was, in some ways, a referendum on the legacy of her father whose name still triggers polarised emotions in many South Koreans.

Admired for dragging the war-torn nation out of poverty, but reviled in some quarters for his repression of dissent, his shadow loomed large over Park's election campaign.

Thus, in an effort at reconciliation, Park publicly acknowledged the excesses of her father's regime and apologised to the families of its victims, a move aimed to shed the historic baggage that has plagued her campaign.

"In the shadows of South Korea's rapid growth, there was pain," she said at a news conference held at the Grand National Party's (GNP's) headquarters in Seoul, September 24 earlier this year.

"I deeply apologise to all those who were personally hurt and family members of victims of government abuse."

And like Korea itself, Park was as much the victim of her father's legacy as the beneficiary.

Park was attending graduate school in France in 1974 when she was called back to Seoul after the First Lady Yook Young-soo was killed by a pro-North Korean gunman aiming for her father.

The then 22-year-old took on the duties of her mother and played a sizeable role as the First Lady of Korea, one of which included persuading the 39th US President Jimmy Carter of the importance of the ongoing presence of US troops in Korea when he visited in 1979.

She left the presidential palace after her father was shot dead by his spy chief in 1979 and after a nine-year hiatus finally began her political career in 1998 as an assemblywoman in her home town for the conservative GNP.

The unmarried 60-year-old with no children -- a fact Park used to gain traction with voters tired of corruption scandals surrounding their first families.

"I have no family to take care of and no children to pass wealth to," she said in a televised address on the last day of campaigning, "You, the people, are my family and your happiness is the reason that I stay in politics."

Park's image of a female politician who promised a strong, maternal style of leadership that would steer the country through the challenges of global economic troubles is at odds with that pushed by her critics, an aloof aristocrat they call the "Ice Queen".

But even dissenters acknowledge her strengths as a campaigner that helped her party secure strong results in local and national polls between 2004 and 2006, emerging victorious in all 40 re-elections and by-elections, earning her another royal moniker as the "Queen of Elections".

And despite her privileged upbringing, Park has demonstrated a tough streak.

In 2006, an attacker at an election event where she was speaking slashed her face with a utility knife, leaving an 11-centimetre wound that needed 60 stitches.

Park had previously ran in 2008 to become the presidential nominee for GNP but eventually lost to the now outgoing president Lee Myung-bak by a narrow margin. Park had won the "party member's bid", but she lost the "national bid" which is a larger percentage of the total presidential bid.

Now Park will face numerous challenges when she begins her five-year term in February, not least dealing with a North Korea.

Even before Park won her party's presidential nomination in August, the state-run Korean Central News Agency hat attacked her candidacy, warning that "a dictator's bloodline cannot change away from its viciousness".

Park has signalled a break from outgoing President Lee Myung-Bak's hard line on Pyongyang, and even held out the possibility of an eventual summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un.

But she will be restricted by conservative forces in her party as well as an international community intent on punishing North Korea for its long-range rocket launch last week.

While Park's election as South Korea's first woman president marks a major breakthrough in a male-dominated country, which ranked 108th out of 135 countries in terms of gender equality by the World Economic Forum -- one place below the United Arab Emirates and just above Kuwait.

However, not everyone sees her victory as paving the way for greater women's rights.

Kim Eun-Ju, executive director of the Centre for Korean Women and Politics, believes Park is a female political leader "only in biological terms".

"For the past 15 years, Park has shown little visible effort to help women in politics or anywhere else as a policymaker," Kim told AFP.

-AFP/CNA/fl



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Samajwadi Party MP expresses regret over bill snatching incident: Speaker

NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party member Yashvir Singh, who had stunned the Lok Sabha yesterday by snatching a copy of the quota bill from minister V Narayanasamy, today expressed regret over the incident.

Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar said the member had expressed regret over the unfortunate incident which had shaken the foundation of democracy.

Kumar said the untoward incident had led to abrupt adjournment of the House yesterday.

"It had shaken the foundation of democracy. Issues should be discussed in the House," the Speaker observed.

Kumar said the member has expressed regret and expected all members to discuss issues in the House.

Singh had snatched the copy of the Constitution (117th Amendment) Bill Narayanasamy.

The incident led to commotion in the House and triggered a war of words outside between the Congress and its ally SP, which is strongly opposed to reservation in promotion for SCs and STs in government jobs.

Parliamentary affairs minister Kamal Nath had said he would urge the Speaker to take action against the SP member.

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Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma


WASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.


Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?


For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.


But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.


"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.


And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.


"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.


Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.


Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.


Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.


There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.


Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.


Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.


In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.


Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.


But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.


Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.


To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.


Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.


When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.


Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.


Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.


Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.


___


EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.


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Obama Invokes Newtown on 'Cliff' Deal













Invoking the somber aftermath of the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., President Obama today appealed to congressional Republicans to embrace a standing "fair deal" on taxes and spending that would avert the fiscal cliff in 13 days.


"If there's one thing we should have after this week, it should be a sense of perspective about what's important," Obama said at a midday news conference.


"I would like to think that members of that [Republican] caucus would say to themselves, 'You know what? We disagree with the president on a whole bunch of things,'" he said. "'But right now what the country needs is for us to compromise.'"


House Speaker John Boehner's response: "Get serious."


Boehner announced at a 52-second news conference that the House will vote Thursday to approve a "plan B" to a broad White House deal -- and authorize simply extending current tax rates for people earning less than $1 million a year and little more.


"Then, the president will have a decision to make," the Ohio Republican said. "He can call on Senate Democrats to pass that bill or he could be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history."








Fiscal Cliff Negotiations: Trying to Make a Deal Watch Video









House Speaker John Boehner Proposes 'Plan B' on Taxes Watch Video









'Fiscal Cliff' Negotiations: Deal Might Be Within Reach Watch Video





Unless Congress acts by Dec. 31, every American will face higher income tax rates and government programs will get hit with deep automatic cuts starting in 2013.


Obama and Boehner have been inching closer to a deal on tax hikes and spending cuts to help reduce the deficit. But they have not yet had a breakthrough on a deal.


Obama's latest plan would raise $1.2 trillion in new tax revenue over 10 years, largely through higher tax rates on incomes above $400,000. He also proposes roughly $930 billion in spending cuts, including new limits on entitlement spending, such as slower annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security beneficiaries.


Boehner has agreed to $1 trillion in new tax revenue, with a tax rate hike for households earning over $1 million. He is seeking more than $1 trillion in spending cuts, with significant changes to Medicare and Social Security.


The president said today that he remains "optimistic" about reaching a broad compromise by Christmas because both sides are "pretty close," a sentiment that has been publicly shared by Boehner.


But the speaker's backup plan has, at least temporarily, stymied talks, with no reported contact between the sides since Monday.


"The speaker should return to the negotiating table with the president because if he does I firmly believe we can have an agreement before Christmas," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a White House ally.


Schumer said Obama and Boehner are "not that far apart" in the negotiations.


"If they were to come to an agreement by Friday, they could write this stuff over the Christmas break and then we'd have to come back before the New Year and pass it," Schumer said.


Obama said he is "open to conversations" and planned to reach out to congressional leaders over the next few days to try to nudge Republicans to accept a "fair deal."


"At some point, there's got to be, I think, a recognition on the part of my Republican friends that -- you know, take the deal," he told reporters.


"They keep on finding ways to say no, as opposed to finding ways to say yes," Obama added. "At some point, you know, they've got take me out of it and think about their voters and think about what's best for the country."



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Insight: Once a symbol of new Afghanistan, can policewomen survive?


KABUL (Reuters) - Shortly after Friba joined the Afghan National Police, she gave herself the nickname "dragon" and vowed to bring law and order to her tormented homeland.


Five years later, she is tired of rebuffing the sexual advances of male colleagues, worries the budget for the female force will shrink and fears the government will abandon them.


Women in the police force were held up as a showcase for Afghan-Western efforts to promote rights in the new Afghanistan, born from the optimism that swept the country after the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.


Images of gun-wielding Afghan policewomen have been broadcast across the globe, even inspiring a television program popular with young Afghan women.


But going from the burqa to the olive green uniform has not been easy.


In Reuters interviews with 12 policewomen in districts across the Afghan capital, complaints of sexual harassment, discrimination and bitter frustration were prevalent.


President Hamid Karzai's goal is for 5,000 women to join the Afghan National Police (ANP) by the end of 2014, when most foreign troops will leave the country.


But government neglect, poor recruitment and a lack of interest on the part of authorities and the male-dominated society mean there are only 1,850 female police officers on the beat, or about 1.25 percent of the entire force.


And it looks to get worse.


Friba, who asked that her second name not be used, says it all when she runs a manicured finger across her throat: "Once foreigners leave we won't even be able to go to the market. We'll be back in burqas. The Taliban are coming back and we all know it."


Conditions for women in Afghanistan have improved significantly since the Taliban were ousted. Women have won back basic rights in voting, education and work since Taliban rule, when they were not allowed out of their homes without a male escort and could be publicly stoned to death for adultery.


But problems persist in the deeply conservative Muslim society scarred by decades of conflict. The United Nations said this month that despite progress, there was a dramatic under reporting of cases of violence against women.


Some female lawmakers and rights groups blame Karzai's government for a waning interest in women's rights as it seeks peace talks with the Taliban, accusations his administration deny.


"We have largely failed in our campaign to create a female police force," said a senior Afghan security official who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.


"Mullahs are against it, and the women are seen as not up to the job," he added, referring to Muslim preachers.


Almost a third of the members of the female force work in Kabul, performing duties such as conducting security checks on women at the airport and checking biometric data.


"CONSTANTLY HARASSED"


Friba sat in a city police station room decorated with posters of policemen clutching weapons to talk to Reuters.


"I am the dragon and I can defend myself, but most of the girls are constantly harassed," she said.


"Just yesterday my colleague put his hands on one of the girl's breasts. She was embarrassed and giggled while he squeezed them. Then she turned to us and burst into tears."


On the other side of Kabul, detective Lailoma, who also asked that her family name not be used, said several policewomen under her command had been raped by their male colleagues.


Dyed russet hair poking out from her black hijab, part of the female ANP uniform, Lailoma wrung her hands as she complained about male colleagues: "They want it to be like the time of the Taliban. They tell us every day we are bad women and should not be allowed to work here."


Male colleagues also taunt the women, she added, often preventing them from entering the kitchen, meaning they miss out on lunch.


On several occasions, male colleagues interrupted Reuters interviews in what the policewomen said were attempts to intimidate them into silence.


One male officer entered the room without knocking three times to retrieve pencils; another spent 20 minutes dusting off his hat, only to put it back on a shelf. The women switched subjects when the men came in.


Rana, a 31-year-old, heavy-set policewoman with curly hair, said policewomen were expected to perform sexual favors: "We're expected to do them to just stay in the force."


The raping of policewomen by their male counterparts "definitely takes place", said Colonel Sayed Omar Saboor, deputy director for gender and human rights at the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police.


"These men are largely illiterate and see the women as immoral."


Insecurity, opposition to women working out of the home and sexism deter many women from signing up, said Saboor.


But impoverished widows sometimes have no choice. A starting salary is about 10,500 afghanis a month ($210).


DIFFICULT


The Interior Ministry and foreign organizations responsible for training the women police - NATO, the European Union and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) - say recruitment poses the main challenge to the force.


"It is just difficult. There is no real history of women in the police force, there is no precedent, even having an open space for women in employment is a challenge," UNDP Associate Administrator Rebeca Grynspan told Reuters.


A recruitment campaign of television adverts and posters has not produced the desired effect in a country where there are huge social and religious divides between the rural and urban populations. Even fewer join the national army, where some 350 women serve amongst 190,000.


"Much of the male leadership don't want to have anything to do with women in the ANP. Commanders want them out of their units," Saboor said, adding that having 2,500 female police officers could be realistic by end-2014.


Of those who join, few have prospects for promotion. They often find themselves in police stations without proper facilities for women, such as toilets or changing rooms which are vital for the many who hide the fact that they work from their families.


The sprawling Interior Ministry has only recently started work on installing toilets for women. "Ten years of this war have passed, and we're only now building them a toilet," Saboor said with a wry laugh.


For First Lieutenant Naderah Keshmiri, whose humble yet stern approach helps her pursue cases of violence against women, life as a policewoman means being undervalued.


"My male subordinates quickly became generals. But not me. Where's my promotion?" she asked in a UNDP-backed Family Response Unit, which she heads.


The UNDP has set up 33 of the units countrywide, which help increase female visibility in the ANP, with plans to more than double them by 2015.


A Western female police trainer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said policewomen are almost always passed over for promotion by their male commanders.


U.S. lawmakers are hoping to amend a defense bill by year-end to protect the rights of Afghan women during the security transition. They want to reduce physical and cultural barriers to women joining the security forces.


Ethnicity also plays a role: 55 percent of women in the ANP are ethnic Tajik, Afghanistan's second-largest ethnic group. Recruiting from the largest and most conservative ethnic group, the Pashtuns, is difficult.


The Taliban draw most of their support from the Pashtuns, who dominate the south of the country. Pashtun women make up only 15 percent of the force.


Hazaras, a largely Shi'ite minority who suffered enormous losses at the hands of the Taliban, are overrepresented amongst the women, making up 24 percent, according to figures from NATO's training mission in Afghanistan.


But many of the policewomen are wondering whether their force can survive.


Lowering her voice, Friba whispered: "As soon as the foreigners leave, they'll reduce our salaries. This will not happen to the men. Or perhaps they'll kick us out entirely."


(Editing by Michael Georgy and Robert Birsel)



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Philippine leader signs US$49b anti-poverty budget






MANILA: Philippine President Benigno Aquino on Wednesday signed into law a 2.005 trillion-peso ($49 billion) budget for 2013, vowing to use higher taxes on tobacco and alcohol to boost programmes to reduce poverty.

Education, health, agriculture and a cash-transfer scheme for the poor are the key priorities of the appropriations, which are 10.5 percent higher than the 2012 national budget, he said during the signing ceremony.

"We designed this budget as an instrument to give the common man the power to control and improve his life," Aquino said.

He thanked parliament for passing earlier this month a controversial rise in "sin taxes" on tobacco and alcohol products, which is expected to bring in over $800 million in extra revenues next year.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said the budget law includes 44.2 billion pesos for "conditional cash-transfer", up 12 percent from this year.

The three-year-old scheme gives up to $34 a month to the poorest families who meet certain criteria, like keeping their children in school and getting them as well as pregnant family members regularly to visit government health clinics.

Government officials say this gives their children a better opportunity to climb out of destitution.

More than 26 percent of the Philippines' population of about 100 million are deemed by the government to be living in poverty.

- AFP/al



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Lok Sabha adjourned till 2pm after uproar over quota bill

NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha members divided over quota in job promotions for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes on Wednesday disrupted proceedings of the house, forcing the speaker to adjourn the house till 2 pm

The house was earlier adjourned till 12 noon.

As soon as the question hour began in the morning, Parliament members from the Samajwadi Party (SP), Janata Dal-United (JD-U)) and Shiv Sena moved near the speaker's podium and raised slogans against the bill.

The Sena leaders wanted the government to hike the minimum support price for cotton.

The bill, passed by the Rajya Sabha last week, is to be taken up in the Lok Sabha.

In an attempt to shout the opposition members down, Congress members raised slogans in favour of the bill.

"We want social justice," they said.

As Speaker Meira Kumar tried to take the question hour forward and allowed minister of state for human resource development Shashi Tharoor to answer supplementary questions, she had to adjourn the house till noon due to the din.

When the house reassembled, the scene was repeated.

Women MPs from the BJP, Akali Dal and the JD(U) approached the chair, asking for a debate on the issue of women's security following the rape and torture of a young woman in Delhi Sunday.

As unruly scenes continued, the chair adjourned the house till 2pm.

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