GENEVA (Reuters) - Almost 50 nations made progress on Friday towards a "Green Fund" to help poor countries fight global warming but hosts Mexico and Switzerland said a full U.N. climate treaty was out of reach for 2010.

Environment ministers and senior officials meeting in Geneva also examined how to raise a promised $100 billion a year in climate aid from 2020 -- perhaps from carbon markets, higher plane fares or taxes on shipping -- to be managed by the Fund.

"We think we should be able to establish the Green Fund in the conference in Cancun," Mexico's Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said after the informal Sept. 2-3 talks among 46 nations in Geneva.

Mexico will host an annual U.N. climate meeting in Cancun from Nov. 29-Dec. 10. A Green Fund is meant to help poor nations shift from fossil fuels and cope with projected floods, droughts, mudslides and rising seas caused by climate change.

Espinosa said any deal in Cancun would fall short of a treaty, part of a lowering of hopes after the U.N.'s Copenhagen summit in 2009 agreed only a non-binding deal. Cancun might decide to build any deals into a treaty, perhaps in 2011.

"We created a lot of expectations in Copenhagen that we would get a comprehensive, legally binding solution. We are no longer fixated on that," Swiss Environment Minister Moritz Leuenberger told a news conference with co-host Espinosa.

FORESTS, CLEAN TECH

Espinosa said a Green Fund would only be agreed as part of a broad package in Cancun, including ways to share clean-energy technologies or protect carbon-absorbing forests. She said all elements of the package had to be agreed, or none.

U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern told a news conference that the meeting had been "pretty constructive".

"The biggest issue is...this has to be part of a package. We are not going to move on the Green Fund, and the $100 billion, if issues central to the Copenhagen Accord, including mitigation and transparency, don't also move," he said.

Stern also reiterated that President Barack Obama was committed to cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 even though the Senate has failed to pass legislation. The United States is the only major developed nation with no legal cap.

Connie Hedegaard, the European Union's climate commissioner, said that there was "some convergence" on the Green Fund but little sign of movement on underlying issues from China and the United States, the top greenhouse gas emitters.

"We've seen nothing new coming out of the U.S., nothing new coming out of China. So we have to be very practical," she said of a focus on steps that fall short of a treaty.

Earlier, the Netherlands launched a U.N.-backed website (www.faststartfinance.org) to try to track how far rich nations, struggling with austerity, are able to keep a pledge made in Copenhagen to give poor nations $30 billion in "new and additional" climate aid from 2010-12.

Christiana Figueres, the U.N.'s climate chief, said the cash was a "golden key" to convince poor nations that the rich were serious in taking the lead to curb global warming. Under the Copenhagen Accord, flows would surge to $100 billion a year from 2020.

So far, the website lists cash promises by 6 European donors including Germany and Britain and 27 recipients from Bangladesh to the Marshall Islands. Stern said Washington would submit U.S. data in coming weeks.

Many of the developing nations' sites, listing cash received, are blank.

(For Reuters latest environment blogs, click on: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/)

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Copyright © 2010 Reuters

LISBON (Reuters) - A Portuguese court jailed six people for up to 18 years on Friday for abusing children from a state orphanage, in a six-year court case that has shocked the nation.

The defendants, including a well-known television presenter, a former diplomat and two doctors, received sentences of between just under six years and 18 years for their participation in abuse of children living at the Casa Pia state home.

One defendant, who had been linked to a house where abuse took place, was acquitted.

The ruling was hailed as a victory by those fighting for children's rights in the country.

"The stories that I heard were the most terrible of my life," said Catalina Pestana, who was put in charge of Casa Pia after the crimes were first reported in 2002.

"I think Portugal, the country, all of us, won a lot from this process. Now, when a child accuses an adult, nobody will look with the same lack of attention that they did for many years."

In the packed courtroom, judges Lopes Barata and Ester Santos read out the findings of the investigation, including how Carlos Silvino, a former driver at Casa Pia, had sexually abused under-aged boys in the orphanage's garage and then paid them.

Silvino, who had confessed to some of the crimes, received the harshest sentence of 18 years.

The others say they are innocent and will appeal. Carlos Cruz, once Portugal's most popular television presenters, was sentenced to seven years in prison.

"There is no proof of my guilt," Cruz told journalists, pledging to appeal the decision. "This brings back memories of Portugal under dictatorship."

"These men have to be condemned, they committed barbaric crimes against humanity," Pedro Namora, a former pupil at Casa Pia and now a lawyer, told reporters.

Many observers say the trial has shown up the slowness and inefficiency of Portuguese courts, especially in handling a trial on this scale -- 920 witnesses were heard in 460 court sessions.

"I had the feeling that more defendants' chairs should be occupied in this court," Namora said.

After years of being accused of lying and fabricating the stories, the victims welcomed the outcome. "After today, a lot of things change for me," said Francisco Guerra, 25, one of the victims. "Now I continue to have my dignity and I can look ahead."

Five of the 32 victims, now in their early 20s, were in the courtroom with their lawyers. Another victim, sitting in the public section, cried and shook nervously during the session.

The weekly newspaper Expresso broke the story in late 2002 when it reported that a driver at Casa Pia had been abusing children at the institution for years.

Soon more alarming reports appeared, alleging that the driver had taken children from the orphanage to other places where they were abused by a number of wealthy individuals.

Before the Casa Pia case, Portuguese media had long shied away from reporting on issues such as child abuse. But there was blanket coverage on Friday, with television stations giving uninterrupted coverage of the court proceedings throughout the day.

Casa Pia was founded in 1780 to help care for the hundreds of children orphaned by a massive earthquake five years earlier. Today it hosts around 4,500 orphans and children whose parents cannot care for them, spread across eight schools in the greater Lisbon area.

(Writing by Axel Bugge; editing by David Stamp)

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Copyright © 2010 Reuters

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A major earthquake of 7.0 magnitude hit New Zealand, 30 km (20 miles) west of Christchurch early on Saturday morning, causing no immediate reports of casualties but widespread damage, authorities said.

The quake, which had a depth of 33 kms (20.5 miles), was felt throughout much of the South Island and southern parts of the North Island, but did not trigger a tsunami.

Police in Christchurch, New Zealand's second-largest city with a population of about 342,000 people, said there were many reports of broken windows, items thrown off shelves, toppled chimneys, with power and water services disrupted.

Radio New Zealand reported that the quake was felt as a long rolling motion lasting up to 40 seconds. The area was continuing to feel aftershocks.

"No destructive widespread tsunami threat exists based on historical earthquake and tsunami data," the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

New Zealand scientists record around 14,000 earthquakes a year, of which around 20 top magnitude 5.0.

The last fatal earthquake in the geologically active country, caught between the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates, was in 1968 when an earthquake measuring 7.1 killed three people on the South Island's West Coast.

(Reporting by Gyles Beckford; Editing by Peter Graff/David Stamp)

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Copyright © 2010 Reuters

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian authorities have banned a far-right online game where players eliminate animated mosques and Muslims, the political party behind the game said on Friday.

The "Bye Bye Mosque" game, which has had over 200,000 visitors since it was launched on Monday, has drawn sharp criticism from Austria's Social Democrats and Green Party, as well as the Islamic and Roman Catholic communities.

Set up by the provincial branch of the far-right Freedom Party ahead of an election in Styria later this month, the game encouraged players to collect points by putting a target over mosques and minarets emerging from the countryside and clicking a "Stop" sign.

They also had the chance to eliminate a bearded muezzin calling Muslims to prayer.

"Due to the political pressure from our opponents this game has been banned by Austrian justice authorities," a statement on the party's website said.

The local prosecutors' office, which was not immediately available for comment, said earlier this week it was investigating the Freedom Party for incitement over the game. The party has said it wanted to start a debate about mosque-building.

The Austrian dispute is symptomatic of a wider trend in the United States and in Europe where Islam is becoming a more prominent political issue.

Geert Wilder's anti-Islam party doubled its seats in the Dutch parliament in June elections and Swiss voters backed a ban on building minarets in a referendum last November.

The debate in Austria reignited last month after the head of its Islamic community said it would be normal to see a mosque with a visible minaret in each of the country's nine provinces.

There are four such buildings in Austria and none of them is in Styria, where 1.6 percent of the population is Muslim according to the Austria Press Agency.

There are around half a million Muslims in Austria, a predominantly Catholic country of 8 million people ruled by a centrist coalition.

At a national level, the Freedom Party has been calling for a special vote on banning mosques with minarets and Islamic face veils before another provincial election in Vienna.

With its catchy slogans and youthful leader, the anti-immigrant party enjoys strong support especially from young people in Austria, winning 17.5 percent of the vote at a national level in 2008.

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Jon Boyle/David Stamp)

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Copyright © 2010 Reuters

DUBAI (Reuters) - A 747-400 Boeing cargo plane operated by United Parcel Service Inc crashed in an air force base near Dubai's airport after takeoff on Friday, the U.S. parcel delivery company said.

The United Arab Emirates civil aviation authority said the bodies of the two crew members on board were recovered.

Officials at Dubai airport, the busiest in the Middle East, were not available to comment but traffic information on its website suggested that flights were not affected by the crash.

The jet was en route to Cologne, Germany, the company said.

Smoke was billowing from the base, a Reuters eyewitness reported. Initially, Al Arabiya television had reported the plane had hit a busy highway, but later reports indicated it did not hit the road.

Al Jazeera television quoted witnesses as saying the plane was ablaze before crashing. State-run Dubai TV said the crash appeared to have been caused by a technical fault.

"I'm at the site of the crash, a deserted area... near the Dubai Al Ain road, not on the road," the station's correspondent said by telephone.

(Reporting by Firouz Sedarat and Erika Solomon in Dubai, James Kelleher in Chicago and Helen Chernikoff in New York; Writing by Reed Stevenson; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Copyright © 2010 Reuters

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A major earthquake of 7.4 magnitude hit New Zealand, 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of Christchurch early Saturday morning, causing no casualties but widespread reports of damage, authorities said.

The quake, which had a depth of 33 kms (20.5 miles), was felt throughout much of the South Island and southern parts of the North Island, but did not trigger a tsunami.

Police in Christchurch, New Zealand's second-largest city with a population of about 342,000 people, said there were many reports of broken windows, items thrown off shelves, toppled chimneys, with power and water services disrupted.

Radio New Zealand reported that the quake was felt as a long rolling motion lasting up to 40 seconds. The area was continuing to feel aftershocks.

New Zealand scientists record around 14,000 earthquakes a year, of which around 20 top magnitude 5.0.

The last fatal earthquake in the geologically active country, caught between the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates, was in 1968 when an earthquake measuring 7.1 killed three people on the South Island's West Coast.

(Reporting by Gyles Beckford; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Copyright © 2010 Reuters

SILVER SPRING, Md., (Reuters) - It wasn't what you would call a casual get-together.

In February 2009, a popular New York blogger attended a brunch with fellow "frazzled moms." They took in tips from a style expert and listened to a nurse extol the virtues of Mirena, a birth control device sold by Bayer Healthcare.

The nurse was on Bayer's payroll. In a series of events organized with the help of a women's website, Mom Central, the pharmaceutical company gathered a captive audience of young mothers. It provided the nurse with a script and had the women fill out a survey before they left.

The sessions earned a stern rebuke from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In a letter to Bayer Healthcare made public earlier this year, the agency faulted the drugmaker for telling "busy moms" that using its intrauterine device (IUD) "will result in increased levels of intimacy, romance and, by implication, emotional satisfaction."

Besides hyping the product, the nurse failed to disclose potential risks. "Here you have a company hiring a third-party to invite people into a home like a Tupperware party," said Thomas Abrams, whose department oversees pharmaceutical marketing reviews at the FDA. "That was extremely, extremely concerning to us because this product has risks -- risk of infection, loss of fertility. Huge risk."

Under the Obama administration, the FDA has vowed to crack down on increasingly aggressive marketing tactics -- both online and off. But even Abrams acknowledges the agency lacks the resources to sharply curtail misleading drug ads.

Downturn or no, the pharmaceutical industry hasn't been skimping on advertising. In 2009, companies spent a vast $4.8 billion to reach out to consumers in the United States -- the only country besides New Zealand that allows direct-to-consumer advertising -- up from nearly $4.7 billion the year before, according to tracking firm Kantar Media.

To drug companies, it is all part of patient education. But consumer advocates, some lawmakers and others see the barrage of ads as a way to push medicines that people may not need as well as raise the nation's overall healthcare costs.

As media splinters into a sea of Internet blogs, on-demand television and niche publications, companies are racing to keep pace. Websites and digital technology offer powerful tools that make it easier, cheaper and quicker to target specific groups. And drugmakers are relying more on celebrities and other methods to make their products stand out.

For example, last year the FDA warned Abbott Laboratories over a promotional DVD featuring former basketball star and HIV patient Earvin "Magic" Johnson that the agency said suggested the company's HIV drug Kaletra was safer and more effective than proven.

Agency staff have also slapped Allergan Inc for its website promoting its eyelash-boosting drug Latisse, saying various webpages did not tell potential consumers about possible risks, such as extraneous hair growth if the product touches the skin elsewhere, and downplayed possible allergic reactions.

Earlier this year, Novartis earned a warning for two websites it sponsored -- www.gistalliance.com and www.cmlalliance.com -- to promote its leukemia drug Gleevec. The FDA said although the sites never used the therapy's brand name, they clearly alluded to it and yet failed to mention critical side effects.

All told, the number of warnings the agency has sent drugmakers has ballooned, despite voluntary industry guidelines established in 2005 to help curb complaints. In 2008, under the Bush administration, the FDA sent just 21 notices to companies for violating the agency's marketing standards. Last year, it sent 41 letters to companies. Already this year, it is outpacing that effort, having issued 45 warnings through Aug. 28.

CREATIVE MARKETING

The FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications, reviews advertisements and other promotional items before and after they run to try to ensure companies do not mislead consumers or make false claims.

Its job isn't getting any easier. "Companies have become more aggressive with their promotion, more creative," said Abrams, a former pharmaceutical salesman who spent seven years working in sales and marketing for two different companies before moving to the FDA's promotional division for the last 16 years.

The advertising universe has been transformed in other ways since his days pushing promotions in New Jersey, home to several of the nation's top drugmakers.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media networks are the new frontier in marketing, and drugmakers are dipping in like everyone else. Pfizer Inc, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca all have Twitter feeds, and some also have blogs.

Unlike the case for print and broadcast, the FDA has yet to lay out guidelines for industry to follow, though Abrams said the agency aims to release a draft later this year.

"We are developing separate guidance that are issue-specific and can apply to the various mediums used on the Internet," he told Reuters. For example, the agency will advise companies how to respond when consumers make an unprompted request for information on a drug.

The lack of guidelines remains a sore point for the industry. "FDA has continued enforcement actions without these clear standards," said Jeff Francer, a lawyer at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the industry lobby group that made the 2005 pledge to clean up ads.

In comments submitted to the FDA ahead of the expected new guidelines, drugmakers made their feelings known. Officials for diversified healthcare company Johnson & Johnson urged the agency to "keep its approach as simple and flexible as possible," in a letter this past February.

And Big Pharma has acquired some unlikely allies. Internet companies that thrive on online advertisements, including YouTube's parent Google Inc and rival Yahoo! Inc, have joined forces with drugmakers in pressing the FDA for clear standards.

'RUNNING TO KEEP UP'

Even without the Internet, FDA officials would have trouble keeping up.

Congress has helped deliver a handful more staffers to help tackle the growing flood of ads, but the agency still has just 57 officials charged with reviewing roughly 75,000 marketing items a year, Abrams noted. They review "thousands and thousands" but can't get to them all, he said.

As a result, agency officials say they must prioritize which promotions get checked first. Those that could have the biggest effect on public health top the pile.

To make matters worse, Congress moved to allow industry funds to boost FDA ad reviews but never fully authorized the program. Companies could have voluntarily paid a fee to have the FDA screen their television commercials before they ran, rather than later when they could get a warning.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, who took over in May 2009, has said staffers simply can't cope with the volume. "We're sort of always running to keep up," Hamburg, a former New York City health chief and public health expert, told lawmakers at a U.S. House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee in March.

"We do review the ads and can take action when we think there are misrepresentations or inadequate presentation of risks, but the volume makes it very, very difficult," she said. "The fact is: we don't review them, sign off, and then they go up."

Insufficient staff isn't the agency's only problem. It is also hampered by antiquated technology systems.

At a time when digital videos take seconds to upload and can reach millions of views in minutes, the FDA's marketing reviewers read storyboards of television and Internet spots on paper, which are archived in a separate room across the agency's 130-acre campus. As with other government entities, the division is moving toward electronic submissions but isn't there yet.

To ease the workload, the agency recently enlisted doctors to report misleading promotions aimed at medical professionals. Its "Bad Ad" campaign seeks to teach physicians how to spot questionable promotions or statements and then report them to the agency voluntarily.

So far, it has received about 100 complaints through the effort.

Nevertheless, consumer activists say FDA's overall approach is likely to fall short. Abrams' office "certainly needs more money and manpower to be regularly monitoring this kind of stuff," said Steve Findlay, a senior health policy analyst for Consumers Union, an independent non-profit group aimed at protecting buyers.

Findlay said the industry's efforts at self-policing have helped, especially among larger companies, but some companies have clearly crossed the line. "We're still seeing drug ads that are not completely balanced and are inappropriate or off-base," he said.

Consumer advocates worry pharmaceutical companies are increasing efforts to reach teenagers through online ads.

Allergan used a "High School Musical"-type promotion for prescription acne drug Aczone featuring "Twilight" movie actor Michael Welch. He starred in an online video series called "Aczone: The Musical."

Other companies have created stuffed animals, games and children's books to promote medicines to youth, said Susan Linn, director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a group of doctors, parents, teachers and other advocates.

"It's not a good idea to start kids on a life of choosing drugs based on whether they are cool, or whether some celebrity is promoting them," said Linn, who believes marketing of medicines to children should be outlawed.

Allergan spokeswoman Caroline Van Hove said the Aczone campaign was appropriate because the drug is approved for ages 12 and older. The musical website was "just one of many informational tactics" to educate patients about what at the time was the first new FDA-approved acne medicine in a decade, she said.

PhRMA's Francer said the vast majority of ads don't merit any regulatory action. He added that it can be extremely hard, especially with television commercials, to convey all of a medication's risks. "It can be incredibly challenging for the companies to present all of the risk information that both they and the FDA want to be presented in a way that is understandable to patients," he told Reuters.

'AN AMAZING EVENING'

In Bayer's case, the New York blogger and another one in Columbus, Ohio wrote about the parties immediately afterward, mentioning both the website that helped organize them as well as the birth control device being touted.

Although studies show that drug ads work -- consumers who see them are more likely to ask their doctors about the product -- it is unclear whether the company's events to promote Mirena had any impact beyond the small parties' audience.

"I went to a brunch yesterday that was hosted by Mom Central and Bayer Healthcare, and they brought in two speakers. One to talk (humorously) about their Mirena birth control product, and the other to give us 'frazzled moms' some basic style tips... The speakers knew their stuff, and did a good job," read one account on www.sanemoms.com that then focused only on fashion.

Another shorter post, at chefdruck.blogspot.com, also only mentioned Mirena in passing in favor of tips on shoes and husbands. "We had an amazing evening, talking about sex, fashion, and living a simpler life," it said.

Stacy DeBroff, chief executive of Mom Central, likened the parties to a focus group, but said her website won't partner with any other drugmakers until the FDA clears up its rules. "For us, it was kind of an experiment of sorts ... If we bring people into your living room what happens?" she told Reuters.

Still, the FDA did not find out about the Tupperware-like party pitch or the online posts until months after they hit the blogosphere and the agency received a complaint. Abrams declined to say who filed the grievance.

Bayer Healthcare, a unit of the German drugmaker Bayer AG, said it stopped holding the parties 10 months before it even received the agency's letter.

In comments to the FDA over social media policies, the German drugmaker said the agency should open up channels to market products and embrace the use of technology, not restrict it. "Any FDA approach should seek to maximize the dissemination of accurate healthcare information to patients and their caregivers," Bayer's senior counsel Christopher Cannon wrote earlier this year. The FDA, he added, should allow drugmakers to be "using the full spectrum of social media and other tools available via the Internet."

Abrams, age 55, said he personally uses Facebook but still relies on his younger staffers to keep up with technology. "I'm not that sophisticated," he joked.

He also said his division will continue to be aggressive in rooting out suspect marketing. One ad reviewer, he said, recently called in on her way to vacation in Florida, having seen a misleading television ad for an erectile dysfunction suppository at the airport.

As for Abrams, he keeps a pad of paper by his television for some evenings when he is watching with his wife, Maureen.

"I can be watching TV with my wife after our kids go to bed, and she knows ... when a drug commercial comes on: no talking," he said.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Lisa Richwine; editing by Jim Impoco and Claudia Parsons)

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Copyright © 2010 Reuters

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - More women are working and dying for powerful drug cartels in Mexico's most violent city as high unemployment along the U.S. border sucks desperate families into the lethal trade.

Once almost unheard of in the macho world of drug trafficking, a record 179 women have been killed by rival hitmen so far this year in Ciudad Juarez, the notorious city across from El Paso, Texas, as teenage girls and even mothers with small children sign up with the cartels, authorities say.

"They killed them, they killed them!" residents of one poor area of Ciudad Juarez shouted in June after two 15-year-old girls were shot down in a murder police blamed on drug gangs.

In August, three teenage girls were shot dead at a drug-fueled party that neighbors said lasted three days.

The involvement of women in Mexico's drug underworld underscores the challenges facing President Felipe Calderon as he struggles to reverse escalating violence and bolster an economy that cannot provide legal work for the poor.

Over 28,000 people have died in drug violence since Calderon launched his campaign against cartels in late 2006, and the bloodshed shows no sign of slowing.

In Ciudad Juarez, which became famous in the 1990s for the unsolved murders of hundreds of women, many of them factory workers, some 6,400 people have died in the last 2-1/2 years.

Calderon faces a formidable task in turning around the border city, the home to factories producing goods exported to U.S. consumers. It was once a party town for U.S. tourists but has become an eerie no-man's land gripped by gruesome attacks.

Violence is taking on a different tone there as women suspected of working for drug gangs are shot by rivals on busy streets, often in front of their children, a deviation from cartels' traditional honor codes barring attacks on women.

"Ninety percent of female homicides in Ciudad Juarez are linked to organized crime," said Patricia Gonzalez, attorney general for Chihuahua state that includes the border city. "The women are probably involved.".

Women are attractive employees for drug traffickers because they are less likely to be searched in drug raids in Mexico.

One woman who smuggled cocaine into the United States for a drug gang told Reuters she has seen girls befriend hitmen, become their lovers and eventually begin working as smugglers.

Many are drawn to the status and excitement of the drug trade.

"When the boyfriends are going to kill someone, they invite the girls along as if if they were going on a trip to the mall or the cinema. It becomes totally normal to work for the cartels," said the woman, who declined to be named.

NO MERCY

Mexico's most famous female smuggler, Sandra Avila, dubbed the "Queen of the Pacific", made headlines for her jewels and luxury cars when she was arrested in late 2007.

But many of the women working for drug gangs in Ciudad Juarez are poor. Some have been laid off from factory jobs as Mexico struggles out of its worst recession since 1932. Most are eager just to earn enough to educate their children.

Reliant on cross-border trade, Ciudad Juarez has been stung by the recession more than some other parts of Mexico. Some 75,000 manufacturing jobs were lost, and so far only have come back. Drug violence has made things worse, shuttering hundreds of bars and restaurants.

"The economy has been a major factor in why these women are selling drugs and participating with organized crime," said Imelda Marrufo, a women's activist in Ciudad Juarez.

Some women, particularly teenagers, join cartels after dropping out of notoriously underfunded schools. They meet boys at nightclubs who are already selling drugs. Some are forced into the business by family members working for cartels.

The job descriptions vary: attractive, well-dressed women sometimes smuggle drugs up to and across the U.S. border.

Others sell drugs in bars in Ciudad Juarez bars or coordinate teams of hitmen, social workers and police said.

One woman known as "La Dona" ("The Lady"), who was killed last month in northern Chihuahua state, was a trafficker for Mexico's top smuggler, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, who leads the Sinaloa cartel in western Mexico, police said.

Despite media reports to the contrary, police say that women generally do not work in hit squads that assassinate rivals or police. Instead, they supervise men who do.

"They tell them who to kill and when," said Aide Arellano, a social worker for Ciudad Juarez's police force. "They travel with their children so as not to look suspicious."

Yet the glamour of cartel work is fading as gangs begin to go after female drug workers without regard to their gender.

"They are killing women just like they kill the men, shooting them. These murders aren't being investigated and it exacerbates the impunity," Marrufo said.

(Writing by Robin Emmott; editing by Missy Ryan and Kieran Murray)

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Copyright © 2008 Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will outline new measures next week to boost the U.S. economy after August data on Friday showed again that jobs -- the central issue in November elections -- were being created too slowly.

Obama, speaking to reporters in the White House Rose Garden, greeted a better-than-expected August employment report that showed thousands of new private sector jobs were created as "positive news."

But he said the numbers were not good enough and more needed to be done to address U.S. economic woes.

The White House is under pressure to show tangible results in lifting growth and hiring before congressional elections in November, when Obama's Democrats face punishment from voters anxious about near double-digit unemployment.

"I will be addressing a broader package of ideas next week," Obama said. "We are confident that we are moving in the right direction. But we want to keep this recovery moving stronger and accelerate the job growth that is needed so desperately all across the country."

On Monday, the president highlighted a number of possible options including extending middle class tax cuts, investing in clean energy, spending more on infrastructure, and delivering more tax cuts to businesses to encourage hiring.

The White House declined to give more specifics about the measures and a spokeswoman said final decisions had not been made.

"We need to take further steps to create jobs and keep the economy growing, including extending tax cuts for the middle class and investing in the areas of our economy where the potential for job growth is greatest," Obama said.

"In the weeks ahead, I'll be discussing some of these ideas in more detail."

Obama will have ample opportunity to flesh out those thoughts next week. He is planning to travel to Milwaukee on Monday, the Labor Day holiday, and will visit Cleveland on Wednesday. He will also hold a White House news conference on Friday, September 10.

The August employment report earlier showed a bigger-than- expected rise of 67,000 in private payrolls, while unemployment inched up a tenth of a percentage point to 9.6 percent.

Overall, U.S. nonfarm payrolls fell 54,000 as temporary jobs to conduct the decennial census dropped by 114,000.

"Jobs are being created. They're just not being created as fast as they need to, given the big hole that we experienced," Obama said.

"We're going to have to continue to work with Republicans and Democrats to come up with ideas that can further accelerate that job growth. I'm confident that we can do that."

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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Copyright © 2010 Reuters

HAVANA (Reuters) - Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, wearing his green military cap and clothing like the comandante of old, made his first speech before the Cuban public on Friday since falling ill in 2006, warning of the threat of nuclear war.

Castro, 84, spoke from the same steps of the University of Havana where 60 years ago he stirred fellow students to political action in the beginnings of the revolution that eventually put him in power in 1959.

About 10,000 people, mostly students, filled the steps and nearby streets to listen to the man who led Cuba for 49 years before an intestinal illness forced him to resign as president and, as Castro stated in a recent newspaper interview, nearly killed him.

His speech was the latest in a string of appearances since Castro re-emerged in July from four years of seclusion. As he has all summer, Castro warned that nuclear war is inevitable if the United States, in alliance with Israel, tries to enforce international sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

The crowd shouted "Fidel, Fidel Fidel" and applauded at several points during the nationally televised address.

Standing behind a podium at the top of steps, he spoke for about 40 minutes, far shorter than the hours-long speeches he once gave. As has been his custom since resurfacing, he did not talk about Cuba's domestic issues.

His renewed public presence has raised questions about whether he could resume a larger role in running Cuba, now officially led by his younger brother, President Raul Castro.

'THE SURVIVAL OF HUMANITY'

He slammed the United States, his long-time foe, for creating a "system that threatens the survival of humanity."

"The problem of people today, the more than 7 billion human beings, is to prevent such a tragedy from happening," he said.

"In this, as in many struggles in the past, it is possible to be victorious," he said.

Last month, he spoke to a session of the National Assembly about the possibility of nuclear war.

He wore plain military clothing, without military insignia or stars.

Fidel Castro ceded power to his brother after undergoing surgery in July 2006, then officially resigned as president in February 2008.

He remains head of the ruling Communist Party and plays a significant behind-the-scenes role. But there has been no sign that his brother is not in charge of the government.

The president did not attend his brother's speech.

Students said they came to the speech not just to hear Castro's message but also for the chance of seeing the elderly revolutionary who has been a world figure for the past half century.

Their theories about why he has stepped back into the spotlight ranged widely, with most taking him at his word that he feels compelled to warn of a possible U.S.-instigated war.

"Fidel is a source of pride for all Cubans. His appearances show the United States that he's still standing," said dental student Eileen Mendoza.

"This is a historic act," said economic student Jose Gonzalez Abreu. "Maybe he's preparing to return to the kind of big, historic speeches he gave before he fell ill."

Raul Castro, 79, has lately stepped up the pace of small economic reforms he has initiated to revive Cuba's struggling economy and, in his words, assure the survival of the revolution after its current generation of leaders is gone.

(Additional reporting by Nelson Acosta; Editing by Frances Kerry and Will Dunham)

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