Military officials in Bangladesh say they have uncovered a plot by religious extremists to overthrow the government. Brigadier General Muhammad Masud Razzaq shared details of the attempted coup with reporters Thursday, calling it a “heinous conspiracy” to topple Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Razzaq said the coup had been planned abroad and that two retired military officers have already been arrested.  A third man, Army Major Ziaul Haq, is on the run.   Razzaq said a total of 16 current and former military officers had been involved. Bangladeshi intelligence officials say the military uncovered the coup plot last month and that the plotters planned to introduce strict Islamic Sharia law. Prime Minister Hasina has cracked down on Islamic militant groups since taking office in early 2009.  She has repeatedly warned such groups were plotting against her government. This is not the first time Hasina has confronted military unrest.  In 2009, shortly after she took office, some of the country’s border guards mutinied, resulting in the deaths of more than 70 people. Bangladesh has a history of bitter political rivalries, coups and counter-coups since gaining its independence. Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.

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LONDON (Reuters) – A new superbug could spread around the world after reaching Britain from India — in part because of medical tourism — and scientists say there are almost no drugs to treat it. Researchers said on Wednesday they had found a new gene called New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase, or NDM-1, in patients in South Asia and in Britain. NDM-1 makes bacteria highly resistant to almost all antibiotics, including the most powerful class called carbapenems, and experts say there are no new drugs on the horizon to tackle it. With international travel in search of cheaper healthcare increasing, particularly for procedures such as cosmetic surgery, Timothy Walsh, who led the study, said he feared the new superbug could soon spread across the globe. “At a global level, this is a real concern,” Walsh, from Britain’s Cardiff University, said in telephone interview. “Because of medical tourism and international travel in general, resistance to these types of bacteria has the potential to spread around the world very, very quickly. And there is nothing in the (drug development) pipeline to tackle it.” Almost as soon as the first antibiotic penicillin was introduced in the 1940s, bacteria began to develop resistance to its effects, prompting researchers to develop many new generations of antibiotics. But their overuse and misuse have helped fuel the rise of drug-resistant “superbug” infections like methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus (MRSA). In a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal on Wednesday, Walsh’s team found that NDM-1 is becoming more common in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan and is also being imported back to Britain in patients returning after treatment. “India also provides cosmetic surgery for other Europeans and Americans, and it is likely NDM-1 will spread worldwide,” the scientists wrote in the study. “CINDERELLA” BUSINESS For many years, antibiotic research has been a “Cinderella” sector of the pharmaceuticals industry, reflecting a mismatch between the scientific difficulty of finding treatments and the modest sales such products are likely to generate, since new drugs are typically saved only for the sickest patients. But the increasing threat from superbugs is encouraging a rethink at the few large drugmakers still actively hunting for new antibiotics, including Pfizer, Merck, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis. Walsh and his international team collected bacteria samples from hospital patients in two places in India, Chennai and Haryana, and from patients referred to Britain’s national reference laboratory between 2007 and 2009. They found 44 NDM-1-positive bacteria in Chennai, 26 in Haryana, 37 in Britain, and 73 in other sites in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Several of the British NDM-1 positive patients had recently traveled to India or Pakistan for hospital treatment, including cosmetic surgery, they said. Most worryingly, NDM-1-producing bacteria are resistant to many antibiotics including carbapenems, the scientists said, a class of the drugs often reserved for emergency use and to treat infections caused by other multi-resistant bugs like MRSA and C-Difficile. Anders Ekblom, global head of medicines development at AstraZeneca, whose Merrem antibiotic is the leading carbapenem, said he saw “great value” in investing in new antibiotics. “We’ve long recognized the growing need for new antibiotics, he said. “Bacteria are continually developing resistance to our arsenal of antibiotics and NDM1 is just the latest example.” Experts commenting on Walsh’s findings said it was important to be alert to the new bug and start screening for it early. “If this emerging public health threat is ignored, sooner or later the medical community could be confronted with carbapenem-resistant (bacteria) that cause common infections, resulting in treatment failures with substantial increases in health-care costs,” Johann Pitout from the University of Calgary in Canada wrote in a commentary in same journal. (Editing by Myra MacDonald) Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter , become a fan on Facebook

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Climate Refugees — Film Review By Justin Lowe, July 03, 2010 05:21 ET “Climate Refugees” Bottom Line: Environmental doc takes disaster-scenario predictions a bit too far. As the number of severe weather-related disasters increases in frequency worldwide, the urgency of documentaries about climate change is rising as well. No longer content to simply present persuasive data models using PowerPoint as in “The Inconvenient Truth,” films like “The Age of Stupid” and “Climate Refugees” are demonstrating the devastating relationships between contemporary natural catastrophes and the effects of global warming. The challenge these films face is to illustrate the increasingly dire impacts of climate shifts while remaining focused and level-headed enough to convince viewers about the significance of the issue before disaster fatigue sets in. Unfortunately, a rather alarmist tone pervading “Climate Refugees” and a tendency toward repetitiveness compromise its message. The doc will nonetheless find a natural home on DVD with broadcast sales also possible. Multi-hyphenate filmmaker Michael Nash travels around the world for 18 months “in search of the truth about our changing climate and the future of mankind,” observing the impacts first-hand and the resulting displacement and migration of residents. In Bangladesh and the Tuvalu Islands of the South Pacific, intensifying storms and rising sea levels are already forcing people to relocate or migrate to other countries. In Africa, it’s the opposite problem — desertification and water scarcity in the sub-Saharan region are leading to food shortages and growing conflict over resources. In North America, the escalation of storm severity and frequency is identified as an early warning sign of major changes to come. Nash deploys an impressive lineup of expert talking heads, including politicians (John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi and even Newt Gingrich), scientists, aid workers and activists. They all convey pretty much the same message: Climate change is already here and wreaking havoc from Louisiana to China, forcing residents to become temporary or even permanent environmental refugees. Many contend that circumstances will likely worsen, at least temporarily until the world can reach consensus on carbon reductions, financial restructuring and environmental remediation. Throughout, Nash (who also narrates) maintains a somber tone of alarm concerning the mounting likelihood of environmental catastrophe. The footage he gathers, however, is often surprisingly mundane, since the crew never seems to experience any catastrophic climate events. Instead, file footage is edited into the narrative to depict these disasters, but the impact seems muted, while inserted still images have a static feel and sometimes appear only remotely connected to the problems Nash tries to elucidate. In the final half-hour, he gets to the root of the problem: the impacts of climate change can’t be isolated from issues of social inequity, resource exploitation, armed conflict, political expediency or any of dozens of other contributing factors. Production values are solid throughout, although the editing, hop scotching among interviewees, becomes needlessly repetitive. Despite the film’s chorus of expert opinion, in the end the reality of climate-induced refugee migration still seems regrettably abstract. Venue: Los Angeles Film Festival
 Production company: LA Think Tank Director-screenwriter: Michael P. Nash Producers: Michael P. Nash, Justin Hogan Executive producers: Stephen Nemeth, Pat McConathy Director of photography: Michael P. Nash Music: Michael Mollura Editors: Michael P. Nash, Bret Langefels, Nancy Frazen No rating, 89 minutes

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