Mora notes

Many malaria nations on course to end disease -WHO

By Kate Kelland, Health and Science CorrespondentSEATTLE, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Nearly a third of all malaria affected countries are on course to eliminate the mosquito-borne disease over the next 10 years, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday.In a progress report published by the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) partnership at the start of an international Malaria Forum conference in Seattle, the United Nations health body said “remarkable progress” had been made.Up to a third of the 108 countries and territories across the world where malaria is endemic are moving towards being able to wipe out the disease within their borders, it said.”Better diagnostic testing and surveillance has provided a clearer picture of where we are on the ground — and has shown that there are countries eliminating malaria in all endemic regions of the world,” Robert Newman, director of the WHO’s Global Malaria Programme, told the conference.He said the WHO continually monitors progress to ensure countries are supported in their efforts to be malaria-free.Almost half the world’s population — or 3.3 billion people — are at risk of malaria and the mosquito-borne parasitic disease killed 781,000 people in 2009, latest data show.Most of its victims are in Africa, where the disease kills a child every 45 seconds.Malaria elimination — halting the disease’s transmission and reducing infections to zero within a defined area — was first attempted on a large scale during the Global Malaria Eradication Program from 1955 to 1972.During that time, 20 countries were certified by WHO as malaria-free. But that number dropped to just four countries during the following 30 years when efforts to control the spread of the disease lapsed and it swiftly returned.Monday’s report said seven countries had recently eliminated malaria and were working to prevent re-introduction, another 10 countries were monitoring transmission to get down to zero malaria cases, and a further nine were “preparing to move towards nationwide elimination of malaria”.”The extraordinary commitment, the … financing, and the coordination of efforts to realise malaria targets over the last ten years have resulted in a situation today where we could see 10 more countries reaching a malaria-free status in a relatively short time,” said Awa Marie Coll-Seck, RBM’s executive director.”This will save many many more lives.”PROGRESS MADERBM said in a report in September that a rapid scale up of a range of malaria control measures — such as insecticide treated mosquito nets, indoor spraying, faster and more accurate diagnosis and access to anti-malaria drugs — has saved an estimated 1.1 million lives in Africa in the past 10 years.International funding for the fight against malaria has also risen substantially in recent years, reaching about $1.5 billion in 2010, up from $100,000 million in 2003.Newman said that with all the highly effective tools currently available, “no one should die of malaria” and urged international donors and national governments to push harder to ensure all those who needed them had access to them.Only then, he said, would the “global goal of eradicating this ancient scourge” become a reality.The Malaria Forum is organised and funded by the Gates Foundation, a $34 billion fund founded by the billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates. The foundation is devoted largely to health projects in poor countries.In 2007, Gates and his wife Melinda called on the international community to fight for global eradication of malaria, saying that to aspire to anything less would be “timid”.

10/17/11

Hedge fund woes don’t slow stock pickers’ meeting

* Big interest in rubbing shoulders with famous tradersBy Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Katya WachtelNEW YORK, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Poor performance does not seem to be much of a hindrance when it comes to investors shelling out thousands of dollars to hear famous hedge fund managers share some of their wisdom about picking stocks.Beginning today, some 600 hundred people who have written big checks will attend the 7th annual Value Investing Congress in New York. The two-day event is a chance for investors, lesser-known money managers and financial advisers to rub shoulders with William Ackman, David Einhorn, Jim Chanos, Leon Cooperman and other titans in the $2 trillion hedge fund industry.This year’s conference, after offering some steep discounts on tickets, is fairly well-attended, even though many of the featured speakers are nursing hefty losses.In fact, the conference’s principal organizer, Whitney Tilson, is the manager of T2 Partners, a small hedge fund that is down 30 percent for the year. Ackman’s $10 billion Pershing Square Capital Management is down 16 percent for the year.But those attending the conference did not seem to mind that many of the speakers were having off-years. Maybe that has something to with the fact the Value Investing Congress is focused on managers who specialize in finding stocks that are unloved gems where payoffs can be years down the road.”Value investors tend to look longer ahead than a hedge fund guy and maybe they are more forgiving,” said Jason Slocock, a private investor who came from London.ANOTHER CUP OF JOEThen again, the biggest buzz during the first day of the conference did not come from a manager identifying a beaten-up stock to buy. It came when Greenlight Capital founder David Einhorn, whose $8 billion fund is down 6 percent this year, told the crowd about a stock he was betting against.Einhorn wowed the crowd with the news that his fund was selling short shares of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc , a company that not too long ago was a darling stock of the the hedge fund set. Some of the coffee company’s early boosters included John Thaler’s JAT Capital and Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Capital. William Danoff, a top mutual fund manager at Fidelity Investments, also liked the stock.Shares of Green Mountain immediately plummeted 10 percent on the news that Einhorn was shorting it because of concerns about the company’s accounting practices and business prospects.”If you get one usable idea it can pay off handsomely and pay for conferences for the next 20 years,” said Allen Benello, a portfolio manager at hedge fund White River Partners in San Francisco.Still, the ideas being touted here are hardly exclusive as they are now available not only to hundreds of other conference attendees, but also to anyone with an Internet connection. Indeed, news of Einhorn’s short bet was a hot topic on Twitter, even as the manager was still going through his lengthy presentation.Many at the conference were waiting for Tuesday’s presentations when Ackman, one of the industry’s biggest stars, is scheduled to speak.Chanos, a famed short-seller, on Monday warned investors not to simply chase a beaten down-stock believing it has hidden value. His presentation to the paying crowd was called, “Beware the global value trap!”Chanos, who runs Kynikos Associates, said, “If I can’t work out how a company is making money after reading their 10K three times, we open a file on it.”Other featured speakers included Cooperman, whose Omega Advisors is down 12.36 percent, and Eminence Capital’s Ricky Sandler, whose fund is off 6.53 percent this year. The list of speakers even included Vladimir Jelisavic, co-founder of Longacre Fund Management, a one-time $800 million fund that recently announced plans to liquidate because of poor performance.GENIUSES AMONG USEven with those sorry numbers, investors said the conference offers attendees a chance to walk among greatness. “You have ideas here you don’t get in the office,” said Brian Cann, who works at RBC DS Private Investment Management in Ontario. “It is like when you can be sitting there for hours and nothing happens and then you and your colleague go to the pub and suddenly you have 42 new ideas,” he added.Conference organizers said this year’s attendance beat last year’s event. But organizers had to offer heavy discounts off the original $4,000-plus ticket price to woo people to come.

10/17/11

Huntsman to skip next Republican debate

The two states are among several jockeying to be first or second to hold primary elections and caucus meetings that will determine the Republican candidate to take on Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.Huntsman, a moderate, is staking his entire campaign on making a strong showing in the northeastern state where moderate voters play a larger role in the primary process than in other early-voting states.”We call on all other campaigns to join us, avoiding typical hypocritical politics by paying lip service to New Hampshire, while campaigning in Nevada,” David said.Huntsman, a former Utah governor and Obama’s former ambassador to China, has failed to garner more than 2 or 3 percent support in national opinion polls,Despite his low poll numbers, Huntsman’s support was high enough to qualify to participate in the debate, said CNN, its sponsor.New Hampshire has jealously guarded its position of holding the first primary and the second contest overall in the presidential nominating race, behind the Iowa caucuses. But Nevada and other states are moving their contests forward, threatening New Hampshire’s status.

10/14/11