That's forcing companies to review the way they do business -- and the arrival of a younger generation of chief executives in many boardrooms is set to spur the strategic overhaul. "I'd be very surprised if they don't take the opportunity to make some radical changes because everybody recognizes that the old model is not sustainable," said Simon Friend, global pharmaceutical leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The problem is highlighted by the world's two biggest drugs, Pfizer Inc's (PFE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) anti-cholesterol pill Lipitor and AstraZeneca Plc's (AZN.L: Quote, Profile, Research) acid reflux treatment Nexium.
Both are losing sales years before their patents expire -- casualties not of direct competition but rivalry from cheap copies of older drugs within the same therapeutic class.

Drugs with annual sales of some $20 billion face patent expiration in 2008 and within the next seven years most of the high-margin drugs developed in the 1980s and 1990s will lose protection.

The British bank lent £750m to the country's new landowning elite in the first half of this year, mostly through a government scheme to boost farm productivity. This weekend Barclays was under pressure to say whether it had lent money to five of Mugabe's ministers - each named in European Union sanctions.

The Sunday Times has established that the five have received cash for their farms under the scheme to which Barclays is one of the main contributors. The country's human rights abuses have made it an international pariah. Gordon Brown, the prime minister, has said he will boycott the EU-Africa summit in Lisbon next month if Mugabe remains on the guest list. Despite the worldwide condemnation, Barclays, which faced criticism for operating in South Africa during the apartheid years, has remained one of only a handful of banks with extensive operations in Zimbabwe. It has recently been opening new branches in the country.

This weekend Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat MP who has a long-standing interest in African affairs, said he would ask David Miliband, the foreign secretary, to investigate whether the Barclays loans had breached EU sanctions. He said: "The loans sustain the regime and individuals within the regime and those who profited from the violent land-grab. It's morally questionable."

Many of the farms now funded by Barclays were forcibly taken by mobs organised by Mugabe's Zanu-PF party. They were distributed to leading figures in the regime, even though the policy was intended to give farms to landless black Zimbabweans. The beneficiaries included Mugabe himself, who is said to have three estates.

Yesterday Zimbabwe opposition figures called for an investigation into how the Barclays funds had been spent. "Barclays is giving money to this regime and propping it up in an opaque process," said Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the Movement for Democratic Change. He said the agricultural loans were used as a "vehicle of personal wealth accumulation for the regime".

Barclays' dealings in Zimbabwe have angered former farmers who lost their land. Derrick Arlett-Johnson, who fled his farm in the Midlands province, said: "They're loaning money to people who have taken something illegally. So in fact they are assisting in a crime, in my opinion."

The outburst came after Mr Chavez called former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar a "fascist". Mr Chavez then interrupted Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's calls for him to be more diplomatic, prompting the king's outburst. Latin American, Portuguese, Spanish and Andorran leaders were meeting in Chile.

Mr Chavez called Mr Aznar, a close ally of US President George W Bush, a fascist, adding "fascists are not human. A snake is more human." Mr Zapatero said: "[Former Prime Minister] Aznar was democratically elected by the Spanish people and was a legitimate representative of the Spanish people." Mr Chavez repeatedly tried to interrupt, despite his microphone being turned off. The king leaned forward and said: "Why don't you shut up?"

According to reports, the king used a familiar term normally used only for close acquaintances - or children.

Speculation is growing that President George W. Bush could launch military action before he leaves office in January 2009 even though Washington says it is committed to resolving the crisis over Iran's disputed atomic ambitions diplomatically. "It should be a walkover militarily," said London-based defense analyst Andrew Brookes about any U.S. attempt to knock out the Islamic Republic's atomic installations.

"The hard bit is what comes afterwards and that is opening Pandora's box," said Brookes of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think-tank. Western powers suspect Iran is seeking to build atom bombs. Iran says its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity so that it can export more of its oil and gas.

A former Iranian official with links to the country's highest authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggested Tehran would respond by using allies in the region to take the fight elsewhere in the Middle East.
"If they want to play games with us, I believe in a few ways we can turn Iraq into a fiery battlefield," he said.

The volcano, whose name means "Child of Krakatau", formed in the Sunda Strait close to Java island after Mount Krakatau's legendary eruption in 1883. It rumbled to life about two weeks ago and since then has been dazzling scientists and visitors with its amazing pyrotechnics.

JP Morgan, which revealed it had $40.6bn of leveraged loans and unfunded commitments on its balance sheet at the end of September, said it faces "further markdowns - if market conditions worsen for this asset class."

In its 10-Q filing, Bank of America also declined to place a number on its possible losses as a result of the current stagnation in the credit markets, but also warned that it is likely to take a hit. BoA revealed that, as of the end of September, its total CDO exposure was $15.5bn, of which $9.8bn was principally backed by sub-prime residential mortgages.

With branches in Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Philadelphia, the group As-Sabiqun - or the Vanguard - is under the leadership of Abdul Alim Musa in the nation's capital. Musa's declaration of his intention to help lead a takeover of America was highlighted by noted Islam observer Robert Spencer on his website Jihad Watch.

Spencer told WND that figures such as Musa should not be ignored, "Not because they have the power to succeed, but because they may commit acts of violence to achieve their purpose."

Musa's website declares: "Those who engage in this great effort require a high level of commitment and determination. We are sending out a call to the believers: Join with us in this great struggle to change the world. The paramount goal of the movement is the establishment of Islam as a complete way of life in America," the group declares. "This ultimate goal is predicated on the belief - shared by many Muslims worldwide - that Islam is fully capable of producing a working and just social, political, economic order.

In London last summer, as WND reported, Muslims gathered in front of the London Central Mosque to applaud fiery preachers prophesying the overthrow of the British government - a future vision that encompasses an Islamic takeover of the White House and the rule of the Quran over America.

An early morning attack by four gunmen who stormed and reached the emergency-response control room of a secured nuclear facility in South Africa has left one of the plant's operational officers hospitalized and officials with the country's nuclear agency threatening a newspaper with charges of violating national security laws for publishing an account of the intrusion.

The attack at the Pelindaba nuclear facility took place early Thursday morning, reported the Pretoria News. Investigators at the Pelindaba plant believe the attackers gained access to the building by using a ladder belonging to the facility's fire department to scale a wall, then forced open a window by pulling out several louvers.

"The facility is meant to be safe. There are security guards, electric fences and security control points. These things are not meant to happen," said Anton Gerber, an emergency services operational officer . During the struggle, Gerber was shot in the chest by one of the attackers, the bullet narrowly missing his heart and spine but hitting his lung and breaking a rib.

A NESCA ( Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa) spokeswoman confirmed the attack but would not say how the intruders gained entry to one of the country's most secure sites or whether anything was taken in the attack. NESCA, she said, was conducting its own internal investigation and would publicize its findings after police finished their work.

Social networking giant MySpace stumbled to its knees at the hands of a cyber superbug recently, falling ill to a severe phishing epidemic that is plaguing a vast and vulnerable segment of its membership. The viral scam, which targets the site's younger users, promises victims a free $500 Macy's gift card. It sounds like a steal. And actually, it is. It's the stealing of a member's identity.

The spam scam involves users unknowingly sending their MySpace friends e-mails and posting comments on their profiles that plug a ploy for the supposedly free gift card that they'll never actually see, touch, or spend.
In fact, to lead the younger members on, the ads are written in "kids-speak." One such posting starts off by telling the victim, "Hey dude, check it out! You ain't gunna believe this!"

Another one reads: "I'm just hittin you up, as a friend, to fill you in on this exclusive deal to get a FREE $500 Macy's Gift Card, yes, FREE! Just answer a question or two and BOOM you got a shopping spree lol!"

Members fall into the phishing net by clicking on a provided link in the posting, which in some cases comes in the form of what looks like a video featuring a scantily-clad young woman. After clicking on the link, the member is taken to a faux MySpace login page where the user is asked to re-enter his or her username and password. That information, however, is actually being sent to the "phisher," a third party illegally acquiring the member's personal information.

The pain and suffering begins immediately and will continue until either the phisher is caught or the member changes his or her password, mainly because victims simply have no clue they're sending the e-mails until someone finally tells them.

"It is an epidemic on MySpace," PC Magazine Executive Editor Jeremy Kaplan tells wcbstv.com. "It is a big problem particularly because of the pervasiveness of MySpace. If you're in junior high, high school, college -- half the world seems to have MySpace pages -- so the younger you are, the more frequently you use it and the more likely you are to encounter this thing. It is a huge problem."

But MySpace's Nigam offers this advice to prevent phishing scams as well: Install the latest operating system and auto-install for critical updates. Use a firewall. Use anti-virus and anti-spyware software and keep them updated.

AND OF COURSE, THERE'S SIMPLE COMMON SENSE. IF THE DEAL LOOKS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, EXPERTS SAY, DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE. IT PROBABLY IS.

Lieberman's remarks came a week after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced a decision to restart his country's nuclear program. On Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that his country had begun operating 3,000 centrifuges for the enrichment of uranium.

"If Egypt and Saudi Arabia begin nuclear programs, this can bring an apocalyptic scenario upon us," Lieberman told the Post. "Their intentions should be taken seriously and the declarations being made now are to prepare the world for when they decide to actually do it."

Lieberman also said PAKISTAN WAS A MAJOR THREAT to Israel due to the political instability there and the fact that the country had missiles, nuclear weapons and a proven capability. "We hope there will be stability and the [Pakistani] nuclear weapons won't fall into radical hands," he said. "If the Taliban or [al-Qaida leader Osama] bin Laden get control [of Pakistan] they will have nuclear weapons for terror use and they don't hide their opinions about Israel."

Lieberman, whose office is in charge of coordinating Israel's efforts against the Iranian threat, blasted International Atomic Energy Agency chief MOHAMED ELBARADEI as a major obstacle to the West's efforts to impose further sanctions on Iran.

"HE IS PART OF THE PROBLEM, NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION," Lieberman said. "ElBaradei's behavior has not succeeded in solving anything like North Korea or Libya's nuclear programs. And instead of criticizing Iran, he finds it right to criticize Israel." Lieberman said ElBaradei was delaying the UN Security Council's consideration of a new round of sanctions by not publishing the new IAEA report on the status of Iran's nuclear program. "They [the IAEA and ElBaradei] are allowing Iran to stall for time and to launder its nuclear program," Lieberman said.

Lieberman said Israel needed to ignore ElBaradei and to work on its own - together with other Western countries - to impose sanctions on the Islamic Republic. He said the international community finally understood that IRAN WAS NOT JUST A THREAT TO ISRAEL BUT TO THE ENTIRE FREE WORLD.

The S&P500 was down 3 per cent for the week. In London, the FTSE100 fell 3.7 per cent on the week, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 was down 3.1 per cent, their worst performances since the credit squeeze took hold at the end of July. The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 experienced its worst week since April 2002, losing 6.8 per cent as market turmoil hit a sector that has been a haven from the credit crisis.

Bond markets priced in the near certainty of a quarter-point interest rate cut when the Fed meets in December, and a 75 per cent chance of a second such cut at its January meeting. The yield on the two-year Treasury note fell to 3.41 per cent, its lowest level since February 2005.

"Treasuries are strictly in flight-to-quality mode, and investors are waiting for the next shoe to drop," said Kevin Flanagan, fixed-income strategist at Morgan Stanley. "THIS IS ROUND TWO AND THERE WILL PROBABLY BE A ROUND THREE."

Rodolfo Garcia, the government's chief peace negotiator, said both sides were hopeful that a deal on creating an ancestral homeland for 3 million Muslims in the south of the mainly Catholic state would be signed early next year. "We have overcome a very contentious issue on territory and we're very optimistic that we might be able to hammer out an ancestral domain agreement by early 2008," Garcia told Reuters.

The two sides have agreed on boundaries for the homeland and how to share wealth from the region's mineral deposits, forests and farmlands. Muslims in the south of the Philippines have been fighting for their own territory for decades. The insurgency has killed 120,000 people and displaced at least 2 million since the late 1960s. It has also stunted development in one of the most resource-rich parts of the archipelago with large deposits of gold, nickel and copper.

Australia, Canada, the European Union, New Zealand, Sweden, the United States and the World Bank have promised to provide hundreds of millions of dollars to rehabilitate war-torn areas once a peace deal is signed.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) said in a bulletin released on 7 November that POOR GLOBAL PRODUCTION OF WHEAT means worldwide prices reached a record high in September 2007 and remained volatile in October.

Mauritania and Senegal are the two countries in the region which rely the most on international markets rather than domestic farming. Wheat is a staple food in both but all of it is imported. Mauritania grows just 30 percent of the food its 3 million people need and imported WHEAT PRICES HAVE EXPLODED BY OVER 75 PERCENT THERE THIS YEAR, FROM US$200 FOR A TON TO US$356, according to the food monitoring group FEWSNET.

If the price continues as it is, people will need to switch to local cereals, or they simply won't have access to food. The situation is being compounded in Senegal and Mauritania and in northern Nigeria by poor harvest of millet, sorghum and maize which are the traditional cereals grown in the region. In northern Nigeria, sorghum production was curtailed by an early end to the rainy season, while in Mauritania, Senegal and Nigeria rains started too late in the year for maize to grow well.

The immediate concerns are currently limited to the wheat and rice importing countries, but experts say a potential production deficit in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, could trigger a wider regional crisis later in the year.

Even countries with good harvests could have food shortages, he said. "Good harvests in one country in West Africa does not necessarily mean food security for the people that live there as West Africa's highly integrated markets mean food moves freely from one country to another."

Good production in Niger coupled with a deficit in Nigeria would means a large part of the grain grown in Niger will pass over the border, and Niger could be left with a shortage as happened in the major crisis in 2005. In that instance, much of the grain grown in Niger was found to have been used to feed chickens in some of Nigeria's vast chicken farms, even as people starved in Niger.

They say no volcanic explosion is imminent -- that already happened 642,000 years ago, creating the volcanic crater known as a caldera where part of Yellowstone Lake sits. But SATELLITE READINGS SHOW JUST HOW VOLCANICALLY ACTIVE THE AREA REMAINS, the researchers reported in the journal Science. From the middle of 2004 through 2006, the floor of THE CALDERA ROSE 7 INCHES AT A RATE OF 2.8 INCHES A YEAR -- the biggest rise ever measured, they reported.

"There is no evidence of an imminent volcanic eruption or hydrothermal explosion. That's the bottom line," University of Utah seismologist Robert Smith said in a statement. "A lot of calderas worldwide go up and down over decades without erupting."

Yellowstone is North America's largest volcanic field, produced by what is known as a hotspot, a plume of hot and molten rock squirting up from 400 miles beneath the planet's surface. Monstrous eruptions took place there starting 2 million years ago but activity bubbles along much more calmly now -- akin to similar volcanic fields such as the Campi Flegrei just outside Naples in Italy.

Beneath the field lies what is known as a magma chamber, which is actually similar to a wet sponge in structure.

"Our best evidence is that the crustal magma chamber is filling with molten rock," Smith said. "But WE HAVE NO IDEA HOW LONG THIS PROCESS GOES ON before there either is an eruption or the inflow of molten rock stops and the caldera deflates again."

The unrest in the Muslim West African state's dusty seaside capital, which followed afternoon prayers, erupted after similar protests in southeastern towns this week in which at least one protester was killed and several were injured. The protests were triggered by sharp rises in the prices of grains and other basic foodstuffs.

Record prices for grains and other crops is making life difficult for millions in West Africa, one of the poorest parts of the world, and is raising fears of severe food shortages. Unprecedented oil prices have increased transport costs, while the explosion in biofuels, subsidised by some Western countries for being less environmentally damaging than fossil fuels, has also contributed to the rise.