Merry Christmas, America-Haters?

When TNT was preparing its annual special “Christmas in Washington” with the president of the United States, you’d think the last star musician they would consider to join the official caroling would be Psy, the South Korean rapper. What on Earth is Christmasy about this man’s invisible-horse-riding dance to his dorky disco-rap hit “Gangnam Style”? It’s not exactly the natural flip-side to “O Holy Night.” But TNT couldn’t resist this year’s YouTube sensation.

This inane publicity stunt backfired when the website Mediaite reported on Dec. 7 that Psy (real name: Park Jae-sang) had participated in a 2002 protest in which he crushed a model of an American tank with a microphone stand. But that’s nothing compared to the footage of a 2004 performance after a Korean missionary was slaughtered by Islamists in Iraq. These lyrics cannot be misunderstood.

“Kill those f—-ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives … Kill those f—-ing Yankees who ordered them to torture … Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers … Kill them all slowly and painfully.”

This isn’t just anti-American. It’s anti-human.

Guess where this story first surfaced in the American media? CNN, from the same corporate family tree as TNT. It was posted back on Oct. 6 on CNN’s iReport, an open-source online news feature that allows users to submit stories for CNN consideration.

The Korean one-hit wonder put out the usual abject careerist apology, but he weirdly said, “I’m deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted.” Those darn lyrics and those darn people who misinterpret lyrics about killing Yankees’ mothers. It is like Barack Obama expressing regret for the awful things said about Susan Rice, ignoring the awful things said by Susan Rice.

Psy is now a millionaire. As Jim Treacher wrote at the Daily Caller: “So far he’s made over $ 8 million from the song, about $ 3 million of it from the people he once wanted to kill.” Brad Schaeffer at Big Hollywood noted his own father fought for South Korea’s independence in the Korean War: “Had it not been for ‘f——-g Yankees’ like my Dad, this now-wealthy South Korean wouldn’t be ‘Oppan Gangnam Style’ so much as ‘Starving Pyongyang Style.’” (Gangnam is a posh district in the South Korean capital of Seoul.)

Despite the controversy, neither the Obama White House nor the TNT brass felt it was necessary to send Psy packing before the Dec. 9 taping. On Saturday, ABC reporter Muhammad Lila merely repeated, “the White House says the concert will go on and that President Obama will attend, saying that they have no control over who performs at that concert.”

What moral cowardice. On Monday morning, another pliant publicist, NBC correspondent Peter Alexander, calmly relayed that the White House did take control on the Psy front — on its own “We The People” website, where the people may post petitions to the president for their fellow citizens to sign. A petition asking Obama to dump Psy from the Christmas concert was itself dumped. Alexander explained: “But that petition was removed because the rules say the petitions only apply to federal actions. And, of course, the President had no say over who the private charity chose to invite.”

This is double baloney. The White House hasn’t removed silly “federal action” petitions like the one asking to “Nationalize the Twinkie Industry,” or one to “Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.” They removed one that they didn’t want people to sign.

As for Obama having “no say over” who appeared on the TNT show, the president could easily declare he wasn’t going to share a stage with this America-hater. Or he could have obviously placed one phone call to Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes (an Obama donor), and expressed the dismay of the President of the United States.

Instead, the Obamas came and honored Psy. Yes, the president honored a man who despised America enough to want its citizens slaughtered.

John Eggerton of Broadcasting and Cable magazine observed, “At the end of the taping, when the First Family customarily shakes hands and talks briefly with the performers, the First Lady gave Psy a hug, followed by a handshake from the President, who engaged Psy in a short, animated discussion — at one point Psy appeared to rock back with laughter — and patted the singer on the shoulder.”

I never thought I’d ever view a Christmas special featuring a hideous hater of America celebrated by the President of the United States.

L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM

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Shire’s ADHD amphetamine wins British backing

LONDON (Reuters) – Shire‘s hyperactivity treatment Vyvanse will be available in Europe within months after Britain’s drugs regulator backed the amphetamine-based stimulant used to treat millions of U.S. students.

The drug, lisdexamfetamine dimesylate, has a slow-release action that activates the amphetamine ingredient over the course of a day, helping levels of alertness and concentration in children with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).

It was assessed under the European Union‘s decentralized approvals procedure, led by Britain’s medicines watchdog. The application was supported by two European studies and clinical data from the United States.

Seven other EU countries – Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Spain and Sweden – participated, and they have agreed product labels. They will now issue their own national approvals, a process that takes up to three months, Shire said.

Chief executive Angus Russell said: “As all ADHD patients are different and will vary in their responses to the available treatments, we believe introducing Elvanse will provide physicians with a broader range of options to help patients with ADHD manage their individual needs effectively”.

Shire has established a leading position in treating hyperactivity in the United States with its stimulants Adderall XR and Vyvanse. The latter saw sales rise 24 percent to $ 247 million in the three months to September.

Shore Capital analyst Brian White said while he had modest sales expectations in the short term for the drug in Europe, where it will be the first amphetamine to be approved for ADHD, the decision was significant because the condition was becoming better known in Europe.

“Shire has been very successful in the U.S. with its ADHD franchise and one would expect them to use that experience to do a similar job in Europe, although that will take a lot longer just given the much lower awareness,” he said.

“They have another product coming along later (Intuniv) which is a non-stimulant, and that could be more appropriate for the European market than a stimulant.”

Vyvanse, which Shire said was the top-selling branded prescribed ADHD medicine in the United States, has been indicated in Europe for ADHD in children aged six years and over when treatment with methylphenidate, better known as Ritalin, was not successful.

(Editing by Dan Lalor)

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UK inflation unchanged at 2.7%

18 December 2012 Last updated at 06:17 ET

UK consumer prices inflation remained unchanged at 2.7% in November, according to official data.

The fastest price rises were seen in the cost of fruit, bread and cereals, as well as in energy bills, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

Car fuel and plane ticket prices fell in November from the month before, as did the cost of carpets and beer.

Retail prices index (RPI) inflation, which includes housing costs, fell to 3% last month, from 3.2% in October.

The consumer prices index (CPI) rate, which is targeted by the Bank of England, had jumped from a three-year low of 2.2% to 2.7% in October, a much bigger rise than had been expected and which came as a nasty shock in the City.

Separate data released by the ONS also showed that the annual rate of increase in producer prices – charged by manufacturers for their products – also held steady in November, at 1.4%, excluding the more volatile prices of food and fuel.

Continue reading the main story

The kind of stability delivered by inflation targeting today may be the stability of the grave yard”

End Quote

Energy bills

CPI inflation is now expected by many investors and economists to creep up further next year as further increases in electricity and gas prices take effect.

“UK inflation paused for breath in November before it resumes its assault on the 3% mark over the next few months,” said Rob Wood, economist at Berenberg Bank.

“The figures included the first of this winter’s gas and electricity price rises, from Scottish and Southern Energy,” he added, saying that the other companies’ bill rises would push the inflation rate higher.

A further rise in supermarket food prices is also widely anticipated, after droughts in the US and Russia, and light monsoons in India, pushed up worldwide prices for grain and other foodstuffs.

CPI inflation has been above the Bank’s 2% target for more than three years and until May this year had exceeded 3% for 29 consecutive months, prompting the governor Sir Mervyn King to write regular letters to the government explaining the Bank’s failure.

The Bank has tolerated the elevated inflation rate because of the depressed state of the economy, which has led the Bank to consistently overestimate how quickly CPI would fall back to its target.

The Bank now expects inflation to fall back to its target only in the autumn of 2014.

New target?

Mark Carney, the Canadian central bank head who is due to take over from Sir Mervyn as governor from June, has hinted at the possibility of scrapping inflation targeting.

That has led to speculation that the Bank may switch to an alternative target – with nominal gross domestic product (NGDP) seen as the most likely candidate.

NGDP measures the economy’s total economic output, but without adjusting for rising prices.

Targeting NGDP instead of CPI inflation would enable the Bank to tolerate higher inflation during the current period of depressed economic growth, and would also oblige the Bank to seek an even faster rise in prices if it had fallen short of its target in previous months.

Economist Chris Williamson: “The Bank of England will tolerate inflation to get the economy growing”

Some economists think that the resulting bias towards higher inflation – at least while the economy remains depressed – would help to make debts more manageable by eroding their value, and would encourage people to spend more for fear that their savings would also be eroded by rising prices.

Opinion is divided among analysts as to whether the Bank of England is likely to push ahead in its next monetary policy meeting with more monetary stimulus – likely to come in the form of further purchases of government debt with newly created money, or Quantitative Easing.

“Higher inflation makes it harder for them to restart QE,” said Alan Clarke, economist at Scotiabank. “I don’t think it makes any difference to the Bank of England. They know these things are outside of their control. Gas bills, droughts, they can’t control that.”

Some Monetary Policy Committee members have resisted increasing QE in recent meetings, according to minutes released by the Bank, with one member, Paul Fisher, publicly saying that he would wait for inflation to start falling before he would personally endorse more money creation.

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Syrian rebels take control of Damascus Palestinian camp

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels took full control of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on Monday after fighting raged for days in the district on the southern edge of President Bashar al-Assad‘s Damascus powerbase, rebel and Palestinian sources said.

The battle had pitted rebels, backed by some Palestinians, against Palestinian fighters of the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC). Many PFLP-GC fighters defected to the rebel side and their leader Ahmed Jibril left the camp two days ago, rebel sources said.

“All of the camp is under the control of the (rebel) Free Syrian Army,” said a Palestinian activist in Yarmouk. He said clashes had stopped and the remaining PFLP fighters retreated to join Assad‘s forces massed on the northern edge of the camp.

The battle in Yarmouk is one of a series of conflicts on the southern fringes of Assad’s capital, as rebels try to choke the power of the 47-year-old leader after a 21-month-old uprising in which 40,000 people have been killed.

Government forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the fighters but the violence has crept into the heart of the city and activists say rebels overran three army stations in a new offensive in the central province of Hama on Monday.

On the border with Lebanon, hundreds of Palestinian families fled across the frontier following the weekend violence in Yarmouk, a Reuters witness said.

Syria hosts half a million Palestinian refugees, most living in Yarmouk, descendants of those admitted after the creation of Israel in 1948, and has always cast itself as a champion of the Palestinian struggle, sponsoring several guerrilla factions.

Both Assad’s government and the mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels have enlisted and armed divided Palestinian factions as the uprising has developed into a civil war.

“NEITHER SIDE CAN WIN”

Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa said in a newspaper interview published on Monday that neither Assad’s forces nor rebels seeking to overthrow him can win the war.

Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim in a power structure dominated by Assad’s Alawite minority, has rarely been seen since the revolt erupted in March 2011 and is not part of the president’s inner circle directing the fight against Sunni rebels. But he is the most prominent figure to say in public that Assad will not win.

Sharaa said the situation in Syria was deteriorating and a “historic settlement” was needed to end the conflict, involving regional powers and the U.N. Security Council and the formation of a national unity government “with broad powers”.

“With every passing day the political and military solutions are becoming more distant. We should be in a position defending the existence of Syria. We are not in a battle for an individual or a regime,” Sharaa was quoted as telling Al-Akhbar newspaper.

“The opposition cannot decisively settle the battle and what the security forces and army units are doing will not achieve a decisive settlement,” he said, adding that insurgents fighting to topple Syria’s leadership could plunge it into “anarchy and an unending spiral of violence”.

Sources close to the Syrian government say Sharaa had pushed for dialogue with the opposition and objected to the military response to an uprising that began peacefully.

In a veiled criticism of the crackdown, he said there was a difference between the state’s duty to provide security to its citizens, and “pursuing a security solution to the crisis”.

He said even Assad could not be certain where events in Syria were leading, but that anyone who met him would hear that “this is a long struggle…and he does not hide his desire to settle matters militarily to reach a final solution.”

In Hama province, rebels and the army clashed in a new campaign launched on Sunday by rebels to block off the country’s north, activists said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-linked violence monitor, said fighting raged through the provincial towns of Karnaz, Kafar Weeta, Halfayeh and Mahardeh.

It said there were no clashes reported in Hama city, which lies on the main north-south highway connecting the capital with Aleppo, Syria’s second city.

Qassem Saadeddine, a member of the newly established rebel military command, said on Sunday fighters had been ordered to surround and attack army positions across the province. He said Assad’s forces were given 48 hours to surrender or be killed.

In 1982 Hafez al-Assad, father of the current ruler, crushed an uprising in Hama city, killing up to 30,000 civilians.

Qatiba al-Naasan, a rebel from Hama, said the offensive would bring retaliatory air strikes from the government but that the situation is “already getting miserable”.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes, Erika Solomon and Dominic Evans in Beirut, Afif Diab at Masnaa, Lebanon; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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RIM begins BlackBerry 10 tests with business, government clients

TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd said on Monday that it had begun a “beta testing” program that allows 120 companies and government departments to try out its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones before their global launch on January 30.

The Canadian company, which is trying to reverse a sharp decline in market share for the BlackBerry, said the program would enable so-called enterprise customers in business and government to size up the BB10.

Features of the BB10 include the ability to separate personal and business information so that the user can store both without compromising security.

RIM has struggled in recent years to hold on to its base of enterprise customers, which typically pay a higher subscription fee than consumers, as their employees push to use devices such as Apple Inc’s iPhone for business as well as personal communications.

“This is a crucial step for us in getting our large enterprise customers ready to support BlackBerry 10 at the point of launch date, as opposed to post-launch date,” Bryan Lee, senior director for enterprise accounts, said in a phone interview.

RIM is providing the software and handsets at no charge, and the companies do not have to buy anything once the trial is finished.

The company plans to release its quarterly results on Thursday, and analysts expect it to report its third straight loss as it struggles to sell its older devices.

RIM made its name selling mobile email devices to bankers, lawyers and other professionals before expanding to sell phones to consumers.

The company said the BB10 testers were from financial, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, media, and distribution industries and include 64 Fortune 500 companies, as well as government departments.

Lee would not identify any of the entities, beyond Integris Health and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which have both said they are testing the new devices.

The customers have installed test versions of RIM’s new server software, which manages iPhones and devices using Google Inc’s Android software as well as BlackBerrys, and will each receive two preproduction BlackBerry 10 handsets later this week.

RIM shares were down 2.1 percent at C$ 13.59 in morning Toronto Stock Exchange trading.

The stock has rallied from September’s multiyear lows around C$ 6.50 on a wave of optimism over the new devices, but the share price is still far below mid-2008 highs of around C$ 150.

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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Pediatricians call to keep thimerosal in vaccines

(Reuters Health) – A mercury-containing preservative rarely used in the United States should not be banned as an ingredient in vaccines, U.S. pediatricians said Monday, in a move that may be controversial.

In its statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) endorsed calls from a World Health Organization (WHO) committee that the preservative, thimerosal, should not be considered a hazardous source of mercury that could be banned by the United Nations.

The AAP in 1999 asked for its removal from vaccines in the United States because of a concern that youngsters receiving multiple shots containing thimerosal might get too much mercury – and develop autism or other neurodevelopmental problems, despite the lack of hard evidence at the time.

“It was absolutely a matter of precaution because of the absence of more information,” said Dr. Louis Cooper, from Columbia University in New York, who was on the organization’s board of directors at the time.

“Subsequently an awful lot of effort has been put into trying to sort out whether thimerosal causes any harm to kids, and the bottom line is basically, it doesn’t look as if it does,” he said.

In a 2004 safety review, for example, the independent U.S. Institute of Medicine concluded there was no evidence thimerosal-containing vaccines could cause autism. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came to the same conclusion in 2010.

With the exception of some types of flu shots, the compound is not used in vaccines in the United States, which are distributed in single-dose vials.

And nobody is arguing that should change, according to Dr. Walter Orenstein, a member of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases and a researcher at the Emory Vaccine Center in Atlanta.

But in countries with fewer resources – where many children still die of vaccine-preventable diseases – it is cheaper and easier to use multi-dose vials of vaccines against diphtheria and tetanus, for example.

Thimerosal prevents the rest of a multi-dose vial from getting contaminated with bacteria or fungi each time a dose is used.

Researchers estimated it could cost anywhere from two to five times as much to manufacture vaccines for developing countries without thimerosal, and both transporting vaccines and keeping them refrigerated would also be much harder.

“We’re having a hard time completing the task of getting every kid immunized now. That would add a tremendous burden,” Cooper said, adding that more children would probably die as a result.

Children who can now be protected from these life-threatening diseases could become vulnerable, Orenstein told Reuters Health.

The new statement is published in the AAP’s journal Pediatrics.

Thimerosal contains a type of mercury called ethyl mercury. Toxic effects have been tied to its cousin, methyl mercury, which stays in the body for much longer.

Earlier this year, the WHO said replacing thimerosal with an alternative preservative could affect vaccine safety and might cause some vaccines to become unavailable.

Mercury, however, is still on the list of global health hazards to be banned in a draft treaty from the United Nations Environment Program – which would mean a ban on thimerosal.

Reducing mercury exposure “is a wonderful thing,” Orenstein said.

However, “We need this exception because thimerosal is so vital for protecting children.”

For the Pediatrics document, please see: bit.ly/cxXOG

(Editing by Christine Soares, Nick Zieminski)

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£12 bill rise for energy upgrade

17 December 2012 Last updated at 06:49 ET

The energy regulator will permit firms running the UK’s electricity and gas grids to add an average £12 to annual energy bills for the next eight years to pay for upgrades and maintenance.

Ofgem said it had cut £7bn from the total cost of work on UK transmission networks planned by energy firms.

The biggest of these firms by far – National Grid – said it was reviewing the “lengthy and wide ranging” plans.

Meanwhile a lobby group warned 300,000 more homes faced imminent fuel poverty.

Energy prices have risen 7% on average this year, according to the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group, and are set to leave more households paying more than 10% of their income on home heating unless the government takes action.

Tax change

Ofgem’s announcement will enable £24bn in total investment in the energy networks up until 2021.

However, an Ofgem spokesperson told the BBC that over half of the £12 bill increase was not due to physical investment in the network, but was instead because of a change in accounting rules which would mean that energy firms could no longer claim back tax on the cost of replacing parts of the network.

The regulator’s announcement represents a slight increase on the £22bn investment allowance that Ofgem initially proposed in July – adding an average £11 to bills – which was attacked by National Grid for being insufficient.

Continue reading the main story

A household is considered to be in fuel poverty if more than 10% of its income is spent on home heating.

“In analysing the proposals, we find numerous errors and questionable judgements which we cover in detail in our response,” the company had said of the initial plans in an open letter to Ofgem.

Under Ofgem’s revised proposal, the average increase in annual bills between 2013 and 2021 will equal £12, starting close to £8 at the beginning of the period, and rising to £15.10 by the end.

If National Grid chooses to challenge Ofgem’s new decision, it has until March to refer the matter to the Competition Commission.

National Grid and the distribution firms do not charge households directly for the cost of maintaining the grid, but the cost is instead passed through by electricity and gas suppliers.

The total cost of transmission and distribution comprises about 21% of gas bills and 10% of electricity bills.

Underground cables

Ofgem said that the increase in allowances compared with their July proposal was because the regulator had agreed to let gas network firms charge more for the cost of replacing gas mains.

Energy Secretary Ed Davey: “The big drivers on energy bills are wholesale and network costs”

National Grid operates the UK’s national electricity and gas grids, as well as four of the country’s eight regional gas distribution networks.

The electricity network in Scotland is owned by two other firms – Scottish and Southern and SP Energy Networks.

Ofgem had already reached an agreement with the Scottish firms in March over their investment plans, the cost of which will contribute £3.70 of the £12 average bill increase, to be borne equally across all UK households.

The planned investment spending across the UK is split between £15.5bn on electricity transmission and distribution, and £8.7bn on gas.

The investments will, among other things, hook up new wind farms and nuclear power stations to the electricity grid to replace traditional coal-fired power stations, and enable more liquefied natural gas imported from Qatar and elsewhere to be added to the gas network as North Sea gas supplies dwindle.

Other improvements will include the running of new and some existing high voltage cables underground, particularly where they affect areas of outstanding natural beauty, and the construction of a new undersea link connecting Scotland with England and Wales.

The spending on the gas network will also finance spending by the energy firms on raising public awareness about the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.

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Iran media: Son of ex-president released on bail

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian media say the son of influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been released on bail.

Several papers, including the pro-reform Etemad daily, say Mahdi Hashemi was released late Sunday and immediately went to his father’s home.

Authorities arrested the younger Hashemi in late September, a day after he returned to Iran from Britain.

He is held on charges of fomenting unrest in the aftermath of Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election that brought President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term in office. Hashemi also faced corruption charges.

His arrest came days after his sister, Faezeh, was taken into custody to serve a six-month sentence on charges of making propaganda against Iran’s ruling system.

Since Rafsanjani backed Ahmadinejad’s reformist challenger in 2009, his family has come under pressure from hardliners.

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Leaked BlackBerry Handset Appears to Emulate iPhone’s Design

Photos of RIM’s first handset that will run BlackBerry 10 — the company’s next operating system, which is scheduled for release in early 2013 — landed on a Vietnamese forum this week. If the 18 photos of the device on tinhte.vn are to be believed, the L-Series, codenamed BlackBerry London, looks quite similar to Apple‘s iPhone 5.

The BlackBerry-branded device in the photos has a rectangular touchscreen with a black bezel along the top and bottom of it, a la the iPhone 5. Watch the video above to learn more. In the photos, the device is powered off, so we don’t get a peek at the OS, but you can see BlackBerry 10 running on a different touchscreen device, in the slideshow below.

[More from Mashable: Dropbox for iOS Gets a New Coat of Paint]

RIM is scheduled to launch BlackBerry 10 and two new smartphones Jan. 30.

BlackBerry 10 Lock Screen

You unlock a BlackBerry 10 device by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.

[More from Mashable: Apple Names Its Best iPhone and iPad Apps of 2012]

Click here to view this gallery.

Photo via tinhte.vn

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Child deaths and bitter cold in Syrian refugee camps

ZAATARI, Jordan (Reuters) – One-year-old Ali Ghazawi, born with a heart defect, faced a battle for survival even before his family fled Syria‘s civil war. It was a struggle he lost two weeks ago in the bitter winter cold of a tented refugee camp in north Jordan.

Ali died two days after undergoing a heart operation in Zaatari camp, which houses at least 32,000 refugees who escaped fierce bombardment in Syria’s rebellious southern province of Deraa, cradle of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

“I covered my son with two blankets, but he was not warming up, and he turned blue before he passed away in my hands,” said his sobbing 22-year-old mother, alone with a three-year-old daughter after she left her husband in Deraa and crossed the border in November.

Ali was the fourth baby to die in three weeks in the windswept camp. United Nations aid workers say none of the deaths were the direct result of conditions in Zaatari, yet they highlight the challenge facing relief agencies scrambling to provide basic shelter for half a million refugees in the region.

“These deaths are a result of cumulative factors, some related to shortage in needs and natural causes. But on top of that, the reality that conditions are harsh cannot be ignored,” said Saba Mobaslat, program director at Save the Children.

Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey each host more than 130,000 registered refugees, and relief workers predict the numbers will only increase as violence escalates around the capital Damascus.

Mirroring Syria’s youthful population, almost 65 percent of Jordan’s camp residents are newborns and young children.

“Every night we are getting children as young as four days old, six days old, one week, two weeks old, and it’s a real struggle to try to make sure that everyone survives,” said Andrew Harper, Jordan head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

“Women are giving birth on the border, and people are coming across pregnant. It’s a situation where we just need to redouble efforts, particularly as we move into winter, because you have hundreds of pregnant women who cross the border,” Harper said.

Families often send the most vulnerable to safety, he added, so alongside the very young in Zaatari are many older refugees. “Last night we had a couple who were 97 years old,” he said.

“CHILDREN’S CAMP”

Along the main road in the middle of the camp’s muddy and gravel streets, children of all ages race around the makeshift market place that sprang up after the camp opened in July.

Many families join in, out of enterprise or necessity, selling everything from hot falafel to household goods, old clothing and fresh vegetables.

“It’s a children’s camp. You walk into it and there are children everywhere. It’s in your face. The male adults are staying behind, and a woman comes with 10 children without her bread earner,” Mobaslat added.

In one of several UNICEF-run playgrounds, among seesaws, swings and volunteers giving music lessons, the scars of war are fresh in the minds of most children.

“I long for my home, and I hope Bashar falls to get back to my home. It’s much better than here, where we are humiliated,” said Mohammad Ghazawi, 12, who came to play after a break from selling cheap cigarettes.

Their elders complain that two thin blankets per refugee distributed in recent weeks were not enough to warm them in tents that let in rain water despite zinc reinforcements and waterproof layers that have helped insulate them.

“Kids are dying from cold and lack of blankets. My kids shiver at night, and one has constant diarrhea,” said Mohammad Samara, 46, who fled heavy shelling in the southern Syrian town of Busr al-Sham in October with his wife and four children.

Carsten Hansen, country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), which has set up a heated tent that receives families on arrival, says much progress has been made to help distribute aid.

“Everybody is trying to mobilize resources … in order to react to bigger numbers and a huge influx,” Hansen said, adding that 6,000 gas heaters had been airlifted to Jordan to help heat the tent camp.

FROM CRISIS TO DISASTER?

Harper said UNHCR was working to prevent “this humanitarian crisis becoming a major disaster”. But he said that while aid teams were racing to improve conditions at Zaatari, there were 100,000 other registered refugees living outside the camp and probably another 100,000 unregistered, whose living conditions were not improving.

In Lebanon, too, host to 154,000 refugees, many face a bleak winter, and aid workers expect their numbers to more than double by the middle of next year.

In the Bekaa Valley town of Bar Elias, a woman from the northern Syria province of Idlib says her home for the last year has been a wooden shack with only plastic sheeting to protect from the rain. Plastic bags are stuffed into the roof as extra insurance against leaks. “There is no water, no electricity, no school for my kids,” she said in a croaky voice.

“My husband is sick. The situation is very bad.”

Mads Almaas, NRC country director in Lebanon, said many more may flee Syria over the winter to escape worsening conditions there, putting even greater strain on relief efforts.

“The violence will not only continue but also get worse. And even in the increasingly likely event of the fall of Assad, we don’t think the violence will end,” he said.

Almaas said the United Nations would launch a regional response plan on Wednesday anticipating a total of 300,000 registered refugees in Lebanon by mid-2013. “At first we thought it was too high. Now we are concerned it is too low,” he said.

In Turkey, which hosts 136,000 refugees, camps for the most part have facilities such as portable electric heaters, and refugees receive three hot meals a day from the Red Crescent. But temperatures can plunge below freezing in the rugged terrain along the 900 kilometer (560 mile) border with Syria during the winter months, and rain can be torrential and cause flooding.

Overcrowding remains a concern, with extended families cramped in single tents and ever more refugees arriving as fighting across the border drags on.

Across the region, aid workers fear an explosion in violence could leave them seriously overstretched.

“Right now funds are sufficient. What is a challenge is if we get any shocks, something like 5,000-10,000 refugees arriving (in Lebanon) in a matter of hours,” Almaas said.

If fighting swept through the center of Damascus, thousands of Syrians could flee to the Lebanese border in a matter of hours. “For that, we are not prepared as the NRC. I also question the international community’s capacity.”

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut and Nick Tattersall in Ankara; Editing by Dominic Evans and Will Waterman)

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