A senior Republican senator, John Warner, last night urged President George Bush to begin bringing troops back from Iraq by Christmas, as US intelligence agencies published a bleak assessment of the chances of progress in the country in the next 12 months.

Mr Warner, who has recently returned from Iraq and is widely respected by his Republican colleagues, went much further than in June when he first broke ranks with Mr Bush over the war. After a meeting with White House aides, he told reporters: “We simply cannot, as a nation, stand and continue to put our troops at continuous risk of loss of life and limb without beginning to take some decisive action.”

But he did not go as far as saying that he would support Democratic members of Congress who are likely to renew their attempts to pass legislation to set a timetable for withdrawal. So far only a handful of Republicans have joined them.

He spoke only hours after the national intelligence estimate, the consensus view of the CIA and 15 other American intelligence agencies, published their latest assessment of Iraq. They predicted that the prospects for the Iraqi government are “precarious”, and expressed fears of a surprise attack in that country in the next few weeks comparable to the 1968 Tet offensive that threatened to overwhelm American forces in Vietnam.

An American defence official, briefing journalists ahead of publication, said US forces are braced for “a mini-Tet”. He predicted that the attack could be timed to maximise political pressure on President Bush, when the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, goes to Congress next month to provide an up-to-date assessment of progress.

In contrast with regular press statements from the Pentagon about inflicting casualties on al-Qaida in Iraq, the national intelligence report said the militant group, which has concentrated on “spectacular” attacks, remained strong enough to conduct further high-profile operations.

The 10-page summary, Prospects for Iraq’s Stability, is the first such report since January, when Mr Bush announced his “surge” strategy, in which he sent an extra 30,000 US troops to Iraq. The report said gains had been modest: “There have been measurable, but uneven, improvements in Iraq’s security situation [since January].” It added: “We assess, to the extent that coalition forces continue to conduct robust counter-insurgency operations and mentor and support the Iraqi security forces, that Iraq’s security will continue to improve modestly during the next 6-12 months, but that levels of insurgent and sectarian violence will remain high and the Iraqi government will continue to struggle to achieve national-level political reconciliation and improved governance.”

Mr Bush criticised the Iraqi president, Nouri al-Maliki on Tuesday, but 24 hours later in a piece of damage limitation, he praised him. Mr Maliki, on a visit to Syria, had said he could turn to friends elsewhere if the US ditched him - almost certainly a reference to Iran.

The report also said that the Iraqi army and police had not improved enough to operate independently of the US and other coalition forces.

The White House claimed the report vindicated the administration’s “surge” strategy. Gordon Johndroe, the national security council spokesman, said it showed “that our strategy has improved the security environment in Iraq, but we still face very tough challenges ahead”.

WASHINGTON: In China, some farmers try to maximize the output from their small plots by flooding produce with unapproved pesticides, pumping livestock with antibiotics banned in other countries and using human feces as fertilizer to increase soil productivity.

But the questionable practices do not end there: Chicken pens are frequently suspended over ponds where seafood is raised, recycling chicken waste as a food source for seafood, according to a leading food safety expert who served as adviser to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Suspect Chinese agricultural practices could soon affect consumers in the United States. Government authorities are working on a proposal to allow chickens raised, slaughtered, and cooked in China to be sold in the United States, and under current regulations, store labels do not have to indicate the origin of the poultry.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Chinas top agricultural export goal is opening the U.S. market to its cooked chickens.

Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat of Connecticut who is fighting the change, says that China does not deserve entry to the coveted, closed poultry market.

Agricultural exports from China to the United States ballooned from $1 billion in 2002 to nearly $2.3 billion in 2006, according to the USDA Economic Research Service. DeLauro, head of an agricultural subcommittee in the House of Representatives, said Congress should signal its willingness to restrict imports from China until Beijing improved food safety oversight.

“There is deception,” DeLauro said. “There is lax regulation, and theyve got unsanitary conditions. They need to hear from us theyre at risk. Congress has to look at limiting some of their agricultural imports.”

The USDA, which shares food safety oversight with the FDA, says that its proposal to allow the sale of Chinese chicken is in the early stages and that there will be many opportunities for the public to be heard on the matter. Under the plan, any country seeking to export meat, poultry, or egg products to the United States must earn “equivalency,” with documentation that its product is as safe and wholesome as the domestic competition.

Agriculture officials would review records, conduct on-site audits, and confirm that foreign laboratories could ensure the safety of the food, said Steven Cohen, a spokesman for the departments Food Safety and Inspection Service. The agency would also inspect imported products as they enter the United States, he said. “This is a process that has barely begun, and there is a very lengthy review,” Cohen said.

According to Lucius Adkins, president of United Poultry Growers Association, the idea “should be strangled in infancy.” The group represents more than 700 producers in Georgia, one of the leading U.S. poultry producing states.

“You dont know what conditions existed in that plant” in China, he said. In addition, no U.S. government representative in China would be watching poultry being slaughtered and processed, he said. “Its going to come here packaged.”

The National Chicken Council, which represents companies that produce 95 percent of U.S.-grown poultry, has not taken a position on the proposal.

Currently, the United States imports almost no poultry, except for a small amount of chicken exported by Canadian producers, said Richard Lobb, a spokesman for the trade association.

But Americans do eat food from around the world, Lobb said.

“People dont have any problem with potpie from Canada. How they would feel about frozen chicken from China or specialty Chinese products that are canned or dried or something, I dont know.”

In Chinas agricultural system, many farmers toil on one-acre plots, while U.S. farmers often work thousands of acres, said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia and former chairman of the FDAs science advisory board.

In China, “there are hundreds of thousands of these little farms,” Doyle said. “They have small ponds. And over the ponds - in not all cases, but in many cases - theyll have chicken cages. It might be like 20,000 chickens in cages. The chicken feces is what feeds the shrimp.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has found that up to 10 percent of shrimp imported from China contains salmonella, he said. Even more worrisome are shrimp imported from China that contain antibiotics that no amount of cooking can neutralize.

Last month alone, the FDA rejected 51 shipments of catfish, eel, shrimp, and tilapia imported from China because of contaminants like salmonella, veterinary drugs, and nitrofuran, a cancer-causing chemical. A long history of such test results spurred the FDA to begin working proactively with Chinese farmers on safer seafood production methods, Doyle said. Even in poultry produced in the United States, there is contamination with salmonella, he said.

According to the findings from Mercer’s 2007 IT Pay Around the World survey, «www.zdnetasia.com» and Australia are the only countries in the Asia-Pacific region that made it to its list of 10 highest-paying countries in the world.

In contrast, seven Asian countries are among the 10 lowest-paying countries: Vietnam, Philippines, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Beijing and Shanghai–the latter two Chinese cities were treated as separate markets.

Neo Siew Khim, Mercer’s Asia-Pacific business leader of information product solutions, said in a statement: “The lowest-paid IT employees in 2007 tend to be those in Asian markets.

“IT professionals in Hong Kong and Australia are the only two Asia-Pacific markets to make it on the list of top 10 best-paid globally, with the ranking of 9 and 10, respectively,Н Neo added.

The survey found that IT managers in Vietnam and the Philippines receive the lowest average annual salaries in the region, at US$15,470 and US$22,280, respectively.

Their Indian counterparts rank fourth from the bottom of the global list, earning an average of US$25,000 annually.

Mercer’s study found that salaries in Switzerland are the world’s highest, with an IT manager role paying an average of US$140,960 annually. A counterpart in the United States and the United Kingdom earn an average of US$107,500 and US$118,190 a year, respectively.

Mercer IT workforce specialist, David Van De Voort, explained the discrepancy as a result of the impact of outsourcing and «www.zdnetasia.com» to Asia.

Said Van De Voort: “Lower-level roles are being moved to regions where talent is cheaper; the jobs that remain in Western Europe and the United States may be fewer in number but are «www.zdnetasia.com» like vendor relationship managers, internal consultants and IT business partners.”

According to Mercer’s report, cash remains a large incentive for staff in Asia, as reflected by countries such as Indonesia, India and Vietnam having the “highest pay progression ratios”. Pay increases are most significant between positions of seniority in the organizations.

In contrast, Western countries tend to rely on other factors such as bonus schemes. “In these countries, companies need to be more creative to attract staff. There is more focus on variable factors to attract staff, such as bonus schemes, while in lower-paying countries, the emphasis remains on cash compensation,” said David Conroy, London-based principal in Mercer.

A recent salary survey by human resources agency Hudson showed that .