Obesity costs Scots £457m a year

EXPERTS guess that Scotlands plumpness widespread is right away costing the Scottish taxpayer �457 million per year and is without delay obliged for 3,400 deaths. An central inform published tomorrow claims the altogether cost of plumpness to taxpayers will climb to �3 billion per year in dual decades" time unless obligatory movement is taken to plunge into Scotlands weight problem.The aria being exerted on the publicADVERTISEMENT purse by overweight Scots was identified by academics who explain Scotland is sitting on an "obesity time bomb".Their inform sets out the scale of the plumpness widespread and identifies areas for movement to plunge into the crisis.Health cabinet member Nicola Sturgeon said: "Scotland is in the hold of an plumpness epidemic. Obesity right away costs Scotland over �450m a year. If we do not residence this right away it is estimated that this figure could fill up to over �3bn a year – a cost so large it will without delay stroke on the capability to grasp tolerable mercantile expansion "We have estimated scarcely 3,400 people die as a approach outcome of plumpness each year and this is set to increase. It is intolerable to realize that all of this is preventable and with small stairs people can proceed to carry out their weight. We need to take movement right away prior to it is as well late." Annie Anderson, highbrow of Food Choice and executive of the Centre for Public Nutrition Research at Dundee University, pronounced work had to be finished to inspire the food industry to offer not as big portions."The food and splash industry is a vital writer to the economy in a really certain way, but a lot of that income is emptied out by the cost to the NHS of obesity," she said."This sort of interpretation shows us that we have to have the couple in between enlivening the food and splash industry to grow and creation certain we minimise the risk of plumpness growing. "There are a lot of bakers and confectioners in Scotland and we have to work harder to diversify. We have seen healthier dishes in conditions of vitamins and fish oils, but we contingency work together for not as big portions."

Haiti assist bid injured by delayed U.N. reply

Tom Brown PORT-AU-PRINCE Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:13pm EST Related News Haiti preserve puncture as sleet turns camps to mudThu, Feb eighteen 2010U.N. assist arch chides agencies on Haiti reliefThu, Feb eighteen 2010Sarkozy visits Haiti, unveils vital assist packageWed, Feb seventeen 2010Tarps, toilets are priorities for quake-hit Haiti: U.N.Mon, Feb fifteen 2010One month after quake, Haitians stick on to weep deadFri, Feb twelve 2010 < 1 / 7 >

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Clutching involuntary attack rifles, truckloads of U.N. infantry patrolled the streets of Haiti"s cracked collateral on the day after the trembler strike last month, clearly preoccupied to the wretchedness around them.

World&&&&Natural Disasters

Cries for assistance from people digging for survivors in collapsed buildings were drowned out by the bark of heavy-duty engines as the infantry plowed by Port-au-Prince but interlude to stick on rescue efforts, majority less lead them.

A usual steer since they were deployed in 2004, the U.N. infantry huddled in the shade of their canopied vehicles.

There were about 9,000 uniformed U.N. peacekeepers stationed in Haiti when the upheaval struck on Jan twelve and they were the judicious "first responders" to the mess in the bankrupt Caribbean country, whose notoriously diseased executive supervision was impressed by the scale of the tragedy.

Initially, however, nothing of the peacekeepers appeared to be concerned in hands-on charitable service in what puncture healing experts report as the vicious initial 72 hours after a harmful trembler strikes.

Their reply to the abominable pang was singular to you do security and seeking for looters after the bulk 7.0 upheaval intended majority of the collateral and took what Haitian President Rene Preval says could be as majority as 300,000 lives.

There was looting in the capital, but it paled in some-more aged with the astringency of the charitable crisis.

Horribly-injured patients flooded overstretched hospitals, forcing healing staff to confirm that patients to yield and that were already as well far left to try saving.

"Doctors played God," pronounced Tyler Marshall, a maestro former Los Angeles Times match operative with an general assist organisation that helped out in a tent city erected at the tallness of the destruction on the drift of Port-au-Prince"s University Hospital, the country"s largest.

Scores of U.N. crew died in the quake, together with Hedi Annabi, head of the U.N. mission that was set up in 2004. That helps insist what majority have criticized as a glacially delayed kickoff of service operations after one of history"s misfortune healthy disasters.

But in the days and weeks that followed it mostly seemed that lessons from alternative disasters were abandoned in Haiti as fears of rioting or anarchy overshadowed concerns about removing assist out quickly.

The U.N."s tip charitable assist official, John Holmes, is between those who have chided service agencies, together with the United Nations itself, for you do as well small to assistance Haiti.

"We cannot ... wait for for for the subsequent puncture for these lessons to be learned," Holmes wrote in a trusted email initial published on the website of the biography Foreign Policy.

"There is an obligatory need to progress significantly genius on the ground, to urge coordination, vital formulation and sustenance of aid," pronounced Holmes.

Edmond Mulet, behaving head of the U.N. mission, concurred in an talk that it played a singular charitable purpose in the initial couple of days after the trembler since the operations were effectively decapitated.

"At the unequivocally commencement it was unequivocally formidable since all the domicile was utterly broken and all the care of the mission was killed," Mulet told Reuters.

"CRIMINALS AND BANDITS"

Mulet gained prominence for wielding an iron fist during a prior army as head of the U.N. mission when he led mostly Brazilian "blue helmet" infantry in a successful crackdown on Haiti"s heavily armed gangs.

And he has finished no tip about sophistry the competing needs of service operations with law enforcement, in his bid to lane down the some-more than 3,000 inmates who took value of the trembler to shun from the main prison.

"We are here additionally to yield security," he pronounced when asked about the mess of convoys of rifle-wielding U.N. infantry to poke for people trapped in the rubble of the busted capital.

"I still have to patrol, I still have to go after all these criminals and bandits that transient from the inhabitant penitentiary, the squad leaders, the criminals, the killers, the kidnappers. I cannot unequivocally confuse myself from you do that."

The service mission shifted in to higher rigging after U.S. infantry deployed in large numbers and set up a supply sequence to get food and disinfectant in to areas great out for aid.

But there were still majority bottlenecks and setbacks, mostly involving U.N.-linked food distributions hobbled by unsound organization, reserve and throng control.

Unfortunately, U.N. infantry in Haiti have over the years gained a repute for toughness and abuse some-more than for easing pang in the lowest nation in the Americas.

"The usually time I"ve seen one of these U.N. infantry burst out of the behind of a lorry was to kick up on somebody or take a shot at them," pronounced a piece of the U.S. Army"s 82nd Airborne Division, as he worked security during a new assist handout.

"These guys have since all of us in unvaried a bad repute here," he said, asking not to be identified.

Haiti"s wrecked infrastructure and bad ride links finished it formidable to get assist out and keep it flowing, but that frequency finished the incident opposite from that in alternative new disasters around the globe.

"POOREST AND MOST VULNERABLE"

"The lowest and the majority exposed people lend towards to live in the regions that are strike the majority by healthy disasters," pronounced Solomon Kuah, an puncture healing medicine formed in New York who outlayed 4 weeks in Port-au-Prince after the quake.

There are no arguable estimates for the series of survivors who died from injuries due to unsound healing supplies.

But Henriette Chamouillet, the World Health Organization"s deputy in Haiti, pronounced all from staff shortages to bureaucracy and a miss of make-up lists embroiled the smoothness of containers full of medicines from Port-au-Prince"s airfield to doctors on the ground.

Port-au-Prince sits usually 700 miles off the seashore of Miami, that is home to a large Haitian-American community, and it seemed ludicrous that so couple of the U.S. infantry rushed there spoke French or were accompanied by translators.

One retaining picture of pell-mell food distributions came when U.S. helicopters offloaded boxes of MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) at a site in the capital. Many Haitians non-stop them up usually to toss them afar in offend since no French or Creole-language instructions were enclosed with the assumingly invalid packets of dust, explaining that they indispensable to be churned with H2O as piece of their preparation.

Rajiv Shah, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, has touted the Haiti service mission as "the largest and majority successful general poke and rescue bid ever fabricated in history."

But some-more than 6 weeks after the upheaval hit, the mission is still mostly in an puncture reply mode. The U.N."s World Food Program is tying the food rations to 55-pound (25 kg) bags of rice and the Haitian supervision estimates that a million upheaval survivors are still vital in the streets in temporary encampments with no using H2O or toilets.

Doctors are roughly finished traffic with dire injuries but reconstruction for a little 40,000 amputees and rebuilding Haiti"s health infrastructure are between long-term challenges.

"This is unequivocally a mess of Biblical proportions," pronounced Lewis Lucke, who was the USAID executive in Iraq prior to entrance to Haiti as U.S. ambassador.

U.N. and alternative officials have pronounced the tellurian reply to Haiti"s upheaval was quicker and some-more in effect than in alternative new disasters, together with the Asian tsunami that killed 226,000 people in thirteen countries in Dec 2004.

But experts contend the United Nations has a lot to sense from smaller, some-more nimble healing groups similar to International Medical Corps, or IMC, and Paris-based Medicins Sans Frontieres, along with charities some-more experienced in distributing aid, such as CARE and Catholic Relief Services.

Kuah, who concurrent service efforts for IMC, a California-based organisation that had rarely learned doctors treating patients in Haiti twenty-three hours after the trembler struck, stressed the "need for speed" when it comes to saving lives.

"When you ask yourself if there were ways you could have prevented some-more mortalities or discontinued additional mortality, with earthquakes, in particular, it"s some-more timing than anything else," pronounced Kuah.

(Additional stating by Catherine Bremer, Jackie Frank, Patricia Zengerle, Mica Rosenberg and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Kieran Murray)

World Natural Disasters lampshade for acne to phone help this mulls

West Ham United protest to Premier League about Fulham group preference Football

Alex Brodie & ,}

West Ham United have complained to the Premier League over Roy Hodgson"s decision to rest multiform players for Fulham"s Barclays Premier League compare against Hull City last Saturday.

The Premier League has reliable that an central censure has been perceived from the East London bar connected with the compare at the KC Stadium in that Fulham left out Bobby Zamora, Danny Murphy, Aaron Hughes, Dickson Etuhu and Damien Duff.

Hull kick Fulham 2-0 to move turn with West Ham on twenty-seven points. Hull are 18th, one place next West Ham on idea difference, but they have a diversion in hand.

All five players proposed the Europa League quarter-final, initial leg win against Wolfsburg at Craven Cottage last night. Duff and Zamora scored in the 2-1 feat over the German champions.

Related LinksPremier League previews: Aquilani doubtfulWeakened Fulham mauled by TigersGutsy Fulham waylay slim advantage

Gianfranco Zola, the West Ham manager, pronounced currently that he can assimilate Hodgson"s side of the argument. Asked about his club"s censure to the Premier League, the Italian said: I only listened about that. I didnt know it was happening. As far as I"m endangered a physical education instructor can fool around his most suitable team. I have no doubts that Roy Hodgson is you do the most suitable for his team.

Hes a chairman I apply oneself for his faithfulness and I have no complaints with that. He motionless to do that and Im certain he has finished the right thing for his club. Plus, from what I review in the reports, Fulham werent that bad, so I have no problems with that.

Hodgson for his piece believes he and Fulham "have no box to answer".

"Firstly, I do not think West Ham should be picking the group and I think that is a sincerely viewable statement," Hodgson said. "My demur is ideally transparent on the subject.

I cant assimilate why, if you have a large squad, the not authorised for you to shift things around. I cant suppose any one doubt Liverpool, Manchester United or Chelsea for utilizing all the players in their squad.

A Premier League orator said: We can endorse that we have perceived an official censure from West Ham over this matter.We will right away ask Fulham for their observations and afterwards the Premier League house will afterwards cruise what actions, if any, are appropriate.

Roberto Martinez, the Wigan Athletic manager, has upheld Fulham and Hodgson and referred to West Ham"s censure as "foolish".

"As a physical education instructor you regularly have decisions that can assistance your team," he said. "Roy Hodgson and Fulham have had such a successful season, they know just what they have got at the back of the scenes and know what they need.

"For any one to criticize an additional football bar when they are in such outstanding form is really foolish. Roy Hodgson has got to have the decisions to assistance his group grasp their aims for the season.

Fulham are suing West Ham for 500,000, the loss of their joining on all sides bonus 3 seasons ago after Carlos Tevezs goals helped keep West Ham up and finish a place on top of Fulham in the Premier League.

The Premier League fined West Ham 5.5 million in Apr 2007 for violation the rules on third-party agreements over the deals that brought Tevez and Javier Mascherano to Upton Park.

Margareta Pagano How the Tories NI plans fool around at the Dog & Whistle

Leave in reserve for a impulse the appropriation sum at the behind of Conservative plans to retreat Labours preference to put up National Insurance if they win the election, and applaud the tasty squabble it has caused. The reason this row should be welcomed is it has at last annoyed correct discuss about the sort of taxes and cuts the open is being offering by the main parties.

It competence usually be the minute cut of income in the scale of the altogether necessity (read Chris Watling conflicting for some-more on this), but the actuality that everybody is removing so steamed up equates to the businessmen who have come out in await of the Tories have overwhelmed a tender nerve. Gordon Browns unusual outburst, accusing the businessmen of being cheated by the pledge, was justification of how their reply to his 1 per cent NI climb has broke him.

Usually, the dangerous when commercial operation people adopt such a narrow-minded proceed to policies, but this time the risk is with the politicians who have additionally been forced in to the open. If zero else, the row reminds us usually how corpulent the NI taxation weight has turn for employers who compensate 12.8 per cent of an employees income in NI, whilst workers compensate eleven per cent. So I was astounded when Richard Lambert, head of the CBI that supports the Tory promise, referred to the row wouldnt seductiveness the man in the Dog & Whistle. He is wrong the man in the beer hall cares deeply about how majority employers are taxed, as they know how this hurts their own pursuit prospects.

The row should additionally be relished given the forced experienced businessmen in to articulate about the stroke that higher taxes will have on destiny growth, and employment. While a little competence be asocial about commercial operation ganging up on Labour, theres no reason to hold their involvement is anything alternative than a genuine try to scream out that the their tough work, bent and investment that yield growth. A harmful side-effects of the retrogression is the stroke the had on new collateral investment and on productivity, that has depressed neatly recently, The UK workforce is right away producing less per workman than in France, Germany and Italy.

Most expansion comes by capability gains, so how investment is kick-started again is the big subject politicians are avoiding or dont have the answer to. But capability gains are elementary to grasp and come from new plant, machine and equipment, rather than people operative harder. Thus the plumber of currently pushing the idealisation movement outpost can do some-more work than he could in the 1970s. The same is loyal of the accountant who uses the idealisation Excel widespread sheet.

But currently the plumber cant means a new outpost and the accountant doesnt wish to compensate for some-more software. So how do we get them investing? The answer will come from the in isolation zone not government. Businessmen and entrepreneurs need to feel confident, means to steal opposite their own assets, or their friends", to take the risk. Thats because the Tories have played a intelligent card, display they are some-more in balance with the punters at the Dog & Whistle than people think the reason because Brown was so angry. If the Tories wish to go on the winning streak, they should additionally guarantee remodel of the NI and income tax.

Crunch talks We can sense from Alan Greenspans example

The Americans not usually do monetary crises improved than us, they additionally find out because they happened improved than us too. Just examination Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, being questioned by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission last week was a provide for any one wondering how we got in to this mess. Greenspan attempted to urge his jot down by observant he had been wrong usually thirty per cent of the time, but at slightest he was forced to explain. Here the Treasury Select Committee has been excellent in the promissory note inspection but alternative than that there has not been a singular exploration in to the credit crunch. Whoever comes to energy subsequent should guarantee their own FCIC-style barbecuing so that we can sense some-more details. Its usually eighteen months given this supervision lifted scarcely �1trn from taxpayers to save the monetary complement from collapse, and the towering that not a singular statesman is job for an explanation. One for the manifesto? You still have time.

Reckitts trainer gets �90m and for once I"d contend it seems well-deserved

Whenever I listen to Bart Bechts name I"m reminded of Bertolt Brecht, the modernist German playwright. Now I know because detached from his name, of course. News that the Dutch trainer of Reckitt Benckiser has been paid such a whopping �90m suggests Becht could have stepped right out of one of Brechts some-more fashionable pieces of theatre. Its a outrageous volume of money, and will see to majority people similar to nonetheless an additional e.g. of gross corporate robbery.

But I am going to take a heretical line that Bechts package appears well-deserved; initial it relates not usually to compensate and bonuses but additionally to sportive share options that go behind scarcely a decade. Second, Becht has presided over one of the good stock-market success stories of the past decade after receiving the helm in 1999. Over the past five years, investors subsidy Becht will have seen their shares some-more than stand in �100 of shares in 2004 are value �239 currently and have outperformed the FTSE 100 Index by a big margin. Whats engaging is that whilst Becht is a physical education instructor of alternative peoples money, he has patently displayed entrepreneurial talents by branch this prude Cillit Bang-to-mustard organisation in to a go-go stock. Its peculiar that we dont appear to mind entrepreneurs such as Sir Richard Branson of Virgin, Sergey Brin of Google or Mike Lynch of Autonomy creation their millions. Indeed, we applaud them. Maybe the time we admit that businessmen or women can be entrepreneurs inside of big firms as well Bob Diamond at Barclays and Sir Terry Leahy of Tesco are alternative examples of entrepreneur-managers in companies that they didnt start, but built up. Its a new difficulty of businessman, perhaps, but one value meditative some-more about.

My own perspective is that Reckitt shareholders, the idealisation owners, are the most appropriate people to confirm if the bashful Becht unequivocally is value such a starry purpose in this show and the frequency a Threepenny Opera.

German Church apologizes vows movement on abuse

Daniel Flynn VATICAN CITY Fri March 12, 2010 6:13pm EST Related News Celibacy discuss re-emerges among Church abuse scandalFri, March twelve 2010 Related Video Sex abuse allegations annoy Vatican Fri, March twelve 2010 < 1 / 4 >

Politicians cosy accord on NHS contingency be damaged

No establishment is some-more worshiped than the NHS. Despite billions of pounds of investment over the last decade, that has seen it grow enormously and occupy tens of thousands of additional doctors and nurses, it is regarded as untouchable. All domestic parties are concluded that it contingency be stable from cuts. None of them is proposing widescale reform.

Can this cosy accord tarry the charge clouds brewing over the state of the UK economy? History suggests not. Today the centre-right think-tank Reform attempts to puncture the prevalent relief with a in allege programme of cuts to change some-more NHS caring in to the community, acquire some-more crash and save additional bucks.

In the inform Fewer Hospitals, More Competition, it argues that tens of thousands of sanatorium beds should be private in areas of the republic with the top numbers (the North and London), and that enlivening foe in in in between services rather than in in in between hospitals would inspire the growth of additional village provision. If each segment had the same series of beds as the South, the sum for England would tumble by some-more than 30,000 from 160,000 to 128,000.

It additionally criticises the Tory leader, David Cameron, for proposing a duration on sanatorium changes and takes Mike O"Brien, a Health minister, to charge over his division in plans by one NHS trust, Gloucester, to remove beds. The NHS should not be authorised to shun the suffering inflicted on alternative open services and should take the share of the bill cuts, it says.

Will we see a domestic celebration taking advantage of these strong proposals in allege of the election? Do pigs fly? Governments have struggled for decades to close hospitals and have the NHS some-more efficient, but they breach with it at their peril. In the 2001 election, Labour lost a key chair when Dr Richard Taylor stood as a single-issue eccentric candidate, protesting about the closure of the A&E dialect at Kidderminster hospital. Dr Taylor won again in 2006.

Closing hospitals does not win votes. Politicians have betrothed to "restructure" the NHS for decades, but corroborated off in the face of postulated internal opposition. Yet it is unfit to yield the highest-quality healing caring in the complicated age in each internal community. The trade-off is in in in between internal entrance and peculiarity of care. Closing a little hospitals is undoubtedly necessary, both for the health of the republic and the presence of the NHS.

Politicians can draw out their hands and complete platitudes if they choose. But the problems confronting the NHS cannot be avoided, usually postponed. To all those who work for or rely on it hope for for a rough ride.

Advancing age compared with increasing risk of complications genocide after implantation of cardiac devices

Implantable cardiac inclination have been increasingly used in first impediment of remarkable cardiac genocide between patients with systolic heart failure, mostly on the basement of auspicious formula from large multicenter clinical trials, the authors write as credentials report in the article. One such device is an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, that monitors the heartrhythm and delivers electrical shocks if indispensable to revive normal heart function. Defibrillators or pacemakers are mostly used to coordinate the actions of the heartventricles in a procession well known as cardiac resynchronization therapy.

However, it has turn increasingly strong that sure studious subgroups might not good from device implantation; for example, make make use of of implantable cardiac defibrillators in patients with renal disaster and in those with modernized heart disaster symptoms has not been compared with a presence benefit, the authors write. Because the normal age in vital clinical trials has ranged from 58 to 67 years and a little have specified an top age extent of 80 years, singular interpretation are accessible on the make make use of of these inclination in comparison adults.

Jason P. Swindle, M.P.H., afterwards of Saint Louis University School of Medicine, and colleagues analyzed interpretation from 26,887 adults who were hospitalized with a diagnosis of heart disaster and underwent implantation of a defibrillator or cardiac resynchronization care in 2004 or 2005.

The median (midpoint) age of all patients was 70 years. Patients age 80 and comparison accounted for 17.5 percent of the procedures (4,694 patients), together with 992 patients (21.1 percent) who were comparison than 85 years and 309 patients (6.6 percent) who were 89 years or older. In-hospital genocide rates increasing from 0.7 percent between patients younger than 80 years to 1.2 percent between those age 80 to 85 and 2.2 percent between those comparison than 85 years.

We found that comparison patients were less expected to have a consequent cardiac procession or a high comorbidity score, suggesting that these patients might be, in fact, rather some-more delicately comparison than the younger cohort, the authors write. However, comparison patients had somewhat some-more complications associated to the device procedure.

Given trends in the demographics of heart disaster and the costs of device therapy, one more studies are compulsory to explain the correspondence of device implantation in comparison patients with heart failure, as well as the merits of less invasive options, they conclude.

Bolivia China group up on communications heavenly body

Eduardo Garcia LA PAZ Thu April 1, 2010 12:48pm EDT Related News FACTBOX-Political risk confronting copper miners around the world12:16pm EDTSix powers to begin work on Iran sanctions: U.S. envoyWed, March 31 2010USTR takes target at China in traffic separator reportsWed, March 31 2010World powers to begin work on Iran sanctions: envoysWed, March 31 2010Petrobras denies talks with China for $10 bln loanMon, March twenty-nine 2010 Bit Defender

Argentine boss celebrates internal drive-in theatre Oscar

March 8, 2010, 2:10 PM EST

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentine President Cristina Fernandez is congratulating the executive and actors of the "The Secret in Their Eyes," a internal movie that won the Oscar for most appropriate foreign-language film.

Fernandez called the movie "a illusory movie that I saw twice and that had a genuine stroke on me."

The movie portrays the activities of the Argentine Anti-communist Alliance. That "Triple A" genocide patrol has been continuous to the deaths and disappearances of 1,500 people during the 1974-76 order of former Argentine President Isabel Peron.

The movie was destined by Juan Jose Campanella, who additionally destined the movie "Son of the Bride," that was nominated for most appropriate unfamiliar movie in 2002.

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New sort of acceleration in China Brazil India elsewhere</title>

Inflation. It"s different this time.

It"s still got the same old causes:

Too much money pumped into the economy.

A huge economic stimulus that"s causing a shortage of goods and labor in some sectors.

Budget deficits and long-term debt that are spiraling out of control and leading to the steady erosion of the value of money.

How to fight inflation

What"s different, though, is inflation"s source -- the overheated economies of the developing world -- and the speed of its advance. This inflation isn"t creeping higher; it"s galloping.

Here"s the big picture:

Inflation is tame in the world"s developed economies at the moment, largely because growth in these still-damaged economies has been so slow.But inflation may already be running out of control in the world"s developing economies. That"s largely because they weren"t quite as damaged in the global financial crisis and have bounced back to rates of growth that were higher than those in the developed economies of Europe, Japan and the United States even before the crisis hit.

In the U.S., for example, inflation at the consumer level (measured by the Consumer Price Index) ran at an annual 2.1% rate in February. At the producer level, inflation ran at an annual 4.4% rate. Though a high rate of inflation in the Producer Price Index is often a sign of consumer inflation to come -- as higher wholesale prices lead to higher consumer prices -- the producer index actually fell in February.

See how the dollar is faring today

In China, on the other hand, inflation at the consumer level ran at a 2.7% annual rate in February. That would be nothing to worry about except that the rate is up strongly over January and December. China"s producer prices climbed at a 5.4% annual rate in February. That was a big jump from the 4.3% annual rate in January -- which was, in turn, a huge jump from the 1.7% annual rate in December.

India, Brazil, Vietnam and other developing countries are showing similar increases in their inflation rates. (For more on this, see my blog posts "Inflation is breaking loose in China and India" and "Will April bring higher interest rates in Brazil?")A new kind of export Inflation is kicking up so strongly in the world"s developing economies for five reasons:

Because their economies weren"t as hard hit by the global financial crisis, they"ve bounced back hard with the help of government stimuli. China"s stimulus, if you combine money from the government with an avalanche of bank loans, dwarfs that in the United States.

The governments of these countries don"t think they have much choice but to pursue pedal-to-the-metal growth policies to stay even with the demand of young and fast-growing populations for jobs.

These countries were experiencing strong inflationary pressures in key sectors -- food in India and China, raw materials in just about every economy but Brazil -- before the global financial crisis and the global economic slowdown. Today"s rise in inflation is back to business as usual in these sectors. In many instances -- raw materials such as iron ore or copper, for example -- increasing global supply requires investing in new capacity that can take three to seven years to get into production.

Most of these economies are built around export models, so higher growth means big surpluses of foreign exchange added to the money supply. Fast economic growth also makes these countries magnets for international capital, which again adds to the domestic money supply.

Many of these economies are riddled with classic supply bottlenecks. China, for example, has ambitious plans to expand its rail network but doesn"t have the domestic capacity to produce all the rolling stock it needs. Imports could supply some of the demand while China"s rail equipment makers geared up production, but the country"s export model works to discourage imports. So China"s rail and construction companies are left scrambling for the equipment and goods they need, driving up prices in the process. India"s persistent food inflation, to take another example, is made worse by an antiquated system of storage and transport that lets between 25% and 40% of some crops spoil before they reach market.

In recent history, the U.S. experience with inflation has been with either the slow, dragged-out, resistant-to-easy-cures inflation of the 1960s through the double-digit rates of the early 1980s, or the inflation threat of a few quarters that"s been quickly snuffed out.

We"re looking at something quite different now in the inflation developing economies are exporting to the global economy.

Growth in inflation in developing economies starts from a higher level because these economies emphasize growth over price stability (and who says they"re wrong to do so?). The European Central Bank wants to keep inflation under 2%. The target of Brazil"s central bank is 4.5%.

But, more importantly, we"re looking at a shift from a global economy where China and other developing economies were exporting deflation in the form of a larger and larger supply of cheaper and cheaper goods to one where prices are rising on the shelves at Wal-Mart (WMT, news, msgs).

And once the cycle moves from rising inflation to a fight against inflation, the effect will be much more dramatic than the usual slowdown in the global economy that results from, say, the United States slowing growth to fight inflation. Because the developing economies of the world have become the world"s factories, they"ve become the marginal buyers in raw material after raw material. It"s Chinese, Indian, Indonesian and Vietnamese demand that sets the price for copper and iron and nickel and, well, you name it. The rally in commodity prices that has helped pull global stock markets out of the dump has been built on a foundation of increasing demand from the developing world.

The financial markets are clearly afraid of what a drop in that demand would mean for commodity prices -- and the financial market is right to be afraid. Policies designed to fight inflation that slow the economies of China, Brazil, India and the rest of the developing world will send commodity prices tumbling. That will, if stock market action so far in 2010 is any guide, be enough to stall, at least, the rally that began in March 2009.

A subtler sort of inflation