NEW DELHI: Power has been fully restored to three electricity grids which had failed in India, causing a blackout affecting more than 600 million people, a senior power official told AFP Wednesday.
"Power has been restored fully across the northern, eastern and north-eastern grids," Power System Operation Corporation chief S.K. Soonee told AFP, referring to the systems which collapsed on Tuesday in an unprecedented outage.
BY the time this article appears it is possible, though not certain, that President Assad’s heavily armed forces will have re-established control of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city and its commercial and economic hub.
What is certain, however, is that hundreds if not thousands will be added to the list of over 20,000 Syrians who have lost their lives in the last 17 months of conflict. The heavy artillery and helicopter gunships that Assad has deployed will add tens if not hundreds of millions to the estimated billions of dollars of damage to property and businesses that has already been inflicted.
Assad’s beleaguered regime shows no signs yet of being willing to accept the rebel demand for him to step down. There are good reasons for this. The Alawite sect to which Assad belongs comprises no more than 10 to 12 per cent of the population in Syria, as against the Sunnis who comprise 70 per cent of the population. The Assad dynasty, which came into being when Bashar’s father Hafez al-Assad seized power in 1970 in a bloodless coup termed the Corrective Revolution, was notable particularly in the time of the older Assad for his ruthlessness and for building the entire ruling structure around Alawite loyalists. Under Hafez al-Assad Syria did make some economic progress, but he is now most remembered for the 1982 order to attack the town of Homs to eliminate Muslim Brotherhood adherents, resulting in the death of more than 30,000 people.
A similar destruction of Homs has occurred now under Bashar. If Assad steps down now there is little hope that he will be able to survive and more importantly, since he has used an Alawite militia — the Shabiha — to attack the Sunni majority rebels, there is even less hope that the Alawites will be spared once their grip on the levers of power is gone.
Assad’s days may well be numbered. There have been defections from within his inner circle. A bomb was planted in the meeting at which his senior-most aides were present and which killed the defence minister and the head of the National Security Bureau. Clearly his security forces are no longer the trustworthy bulwark that they had been in the past.
There are reports prompted by a statement by the Russian ambassador in Paris that Russia would offer him and his family asylum, but these have been denied. There are other reports that Assad may decide to retreat to the Alawite enclave along Syria’s Mediterranean coast. Both seem improbable and it is likely, as has been suggested by one Syria expert, that “Assad might fall but he will do his darnedest to leave behind a burned down country.” An equally important problem might be that the Syrian insurgents may well be united in wanting Assad’s ouster but there may be little else on which they agree. Assad’s departure may not herald peace and calm in Syria but rather a return to a conflict between the secular Sunnis, the extremist Sunnis — some with Al Qaeda connections — and the minorities. No easy solution is in sight.
In the meanwhile it is clear that the struggle to oust Assad has sectarian dimensions and that, as is perhaps inevitable in such situations, the extremist Sunnis have come to dominate substantial segments of the insurgency. It was equally inevitable, perhaps, that they have the support not only of the Sunni states of the Persian Gulf — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc — but also of the Sunnis in Iraq, who after years of ruling the roost there now find themselves relatively powerless in a Shia-majority and Shia-dominated Iraq.
Al Qaeda in South Asia may, by American estimates, have been decimated, but it or its franchisees have certainly gained a fresh lease of life in the heart of the Middle East. Spurred by the Syrian uprising and no doubt reinforced by the flow of funds and arms into the region, Al Qaeda in Iraq announced a new offensive called ‘Breaking down walls’ and gave it concrete shape by launching 40 coordinated attacks across Iraq that killed more than 100 people.
As a result, Syrians who have tried to seek shelter in Iraq have been treated virtually as enemies confined to camps under effective arrest. More than 120,000 Syrians have fled their country, and given the strong family ties between Syrians and Iraqis and the shelter Syria provided to the million of Iraqis who fled during the Iraq war, Syrians had every right to expect better treatment at the hands of their Iraqi brethren. But this has not happened and the majority have had to find shelter in Turkey since even Jordan, given its own turbulent political dynamic and difficult economic situation, has been reluctant to allow the Syrians in.
Turkey has certainly burnished its credentials in the Arab world with its support for Assad’s ouster and for the generally pro-Arab stance of the Erdogan government, but it is now hard-pressed by the inflow of Syrian refugees, by its role as the principal conduit for arms and other supplies for the Syrian insurgents, and most importantly by its concerns about the activities of the PKK in the Kurdish enclaves in Syria. It has to manoeuvre carefully to ensure that turmoil in Syria and Iraq does not lead to a resurgence of the Kurdish problem that has for long been the main issue between Turkey and these two neighbours.
Internationally, even while Russia now seems to accept that Assad is not likely to survive, it has no intention of changing its policy of opposing any move in the UN Security Council to sanction a Libya-like no-fly zone or other military action in Syria.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has now rather belatedly asked for the convening of an extraordinary summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation on Aug 14 and 15, at which one assumes that the main subject for discussion will be the effort that the Islamic ummah can make to help resolve the Syrian problem. This is not likely to go anywhere. The Syrian delegate will be joined by the Iranians in opposing any call for Assad to step down or to grant some kind of recognition to the ‘freedom fighters’.
Unfortunately the summit will only serve to highlight the inability of the ummah to achieve any thing worthwhile in resolving problems such as Syria or repairing the sectarian rifts that have been brought to the fore not only by Syria and Iraq but also by developments in Bahrain and in Saudi Arabia’s own Eastern Province.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.
Rohingya people living in Thailand hold posters and signs as they protest in front of Myanmar's embassy in Bangkok, during Myanmar's President Thein Sein visit to Thailand July 23, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Chaiwat SubprasomBy Martin PettyBANGKOK | Wed Aug 1, 2012 9:51am IST
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Myanmar security forces killed, raped or carried out mass arrests of Rohingya Muslims after deadly sectarian riots in the northeast in June, a rights group said on Wednesday, adding the authorities had done little to prevent the initial unrest.
Aid workers were blocked and in some cases arrested, and Rohingyas bore the brunt of a government crackdown in Rakhine state after a week of arson and machete attack by both ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingyas, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report.
Based on 57 interviews with Rakhines and Rohingyas, the report seeks to shed light on a conflict that exposed deep-rooted communal animosity and put the spotlight on promises by the civilian government in office since 2011 to protect human rights after decades of brutal army rule.
"Burmese security forces failed to protect the Arakan (Rakhine) and Rohingya from each other and then unleashed a campaign of violence and mass round-ups against the Rohingya," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
"The government claims it is committed to ending ethnic strife and abuse, but recent events in Arakan State demonstrate that state-sponsored persecution and discrimination persist."
Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin said on Monday the authorities had exercised "maximum restraint" in restoring law and order and that the rioting was not fuelled by religious persecution.
He rejected what he said were attempts to "politicise and internationalise the situation as a religious issue", adding that the government was eager to promote "racial harmony among different nationalities".
In veiled criticism of the United States and European Union, which praised the government for its handling of the unrest, Adams said the international community had been "blinded by a romantic narrative of sweeping change" in Myanmar.
The former Burma has a diverse ethnic and religious make-up, but the Rohingya Muslims are not included by the government. There are at least 800,000 Rohingyas in the country but they are not recognised as one of its ethnic groups.
Neighbouring Bangladesh does not accept them and pushed boatloads back out to sea when they tried to flee the unrest.
"RESETTLE THEM"
Myanmar President Thein Sein said in June the government was only responsible for third-generation Rohingyas whose families had arrived before independence in 1948 and that it was impossible to accept those who had "illegally entered" Myanmar.
He recommended that the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR take care of them in camps or resettle them in third countries. UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres replied it could only resettle refugees that fled from one country to another.
The riots followed two brutal incidents in Rakhine state: the May 28 rape and murder of a Rakhine woman by three Rohingya males, who were sentenced to death, and the June 3 lynching in response of 10 non-Rohingya Muslims travelling on a bus.
Human Rights Watch said police and troops did not intervene to stop the mobs from beating the Muslims to death. During the riots that followed, it said some Rohingyas who tried to flee or put out fires at their homes were shot at by paramilitaries.
It called for the government to end abuses, grant full humanitarian access and invite in international monitors. Access to the area remains restricted.
Thein Sein is in a tight spot. Concessions towards the Rohingyas could prove unpopular among the general public, but perceived ill-treatment risks angering Western countries that have eased sanctions in response to human rights reforms.
Minister of Border Affairs Thein Htay says 858 people have been detained for involvement in the violence, including five UNHCR staff and a U.N. World Food Programme employee. It was unclear how many of the total were Rohingya or ethnic Rakhine.
The Foreign Ministry has said 77 people died and 109 were injured during the violence, and nearly 5,000 homes burnt down.
(Additional reporting by Aung Hla Tun in Yangon; Editing by Alan Raybould and Nick Macfie)
The United States has named China as one of eight "countries of particular concern" in its annual report on religious freedom issued on Monday.
Critics have hit back at the report, claiming the US is interfering in the internal affairs of other countries in the name of religion.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday that the report "sends a signal that the world is watching".
"It also provides information to help us and others target our advocacy, to make sure we reach the people who most need our help," Clinton said.
A Xinhua News Agency commentary published on Tuesday accused the report of being "nothing but a political tool used by the US government to exert pressure on other countries, mostly deemed as its rivals".
Four Asian countries - China, Myanmar, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Uzbekistan - were among eight nations designated as "countries of particular concern" on religious freedom. Eritrea, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Sudan were also named.
The report is largely based on unconfirmed media reports and groundless allegations from outlawed groups and organizations with an ulterior motive, the Xinhua commentary said.
By blaming China for "marked deterioration" in religious freedom, the report apparently ignored the basic facts and realities in China, which has made utmost efforts to defend religious freedom and the right to express religious belief on condition that laws are respected, it said.
Contrary to the report's claims that "increased restrictions on religious freedom" led to at least 12 self-immolations in 2011 in the Tibet autonomous region, these incidents were in fact part of the Dalai Lama clique's scheme to internationalize the Tibet issue, according to Xinhua.
Only a few members from banned cults and illegal extremist religious organizations, which engage in illegal or separatist activities under the guise of seeking religious freedom, have been punished in China strictly in accordance with the laws, Xinhua said.
The US State Department has been issuing to the Congress the annual Report on International Religious Freedom, which covers nearly 200 countries and territories, since 1999, under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
Releasing the report "will only backfire by creating more suspicion and distrust rather than fostering mutual understanding and improving relations with other countries", said the Xinhua commentary.
"Equality and mutual respect have been the cornerstones for building nation-to-nation relations, but the United States has shown no respect to others by imposing its own standards on religious policies, regardless of the differences in history, cultural tradition and economic and political realities," it said.
Niu Jun, an expert on US studies at Peking University, said that conflict between China and the US on religious issues has been a "chronic problem" between the two countries, which have different political systems.
The US has been issuing such reports annually for many years, but "not all of the information in the reports is precise and some is far from the real situation of China's religious reality", Niu said.
chengguangjin@chinadaily.com.cn (China Daily 08/01/2012 page22)
JERUSALEM: A letter to Israel from Egypt’s new president hoping for regional peace kicked up a stir Tuesday when the Egyptian leader’s Islamist movement denied he sent it. Israel insisted the letter was genuine.
The spat underlined the touchy nature of Egyptian-Israeli relations, always frosty but now especially sensitive in the wake of Muslim Brotherhood victories in Egyptian elections.
It also appeared to show some disarray in the fractured Egyptian government.
The letter, ostensibly sent by Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi, was a response to a message from Israeli President Shimon Peres, conveying Israel’s good wishes for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The return letter, released by the Israeli president’s office, was on the stationery of the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv.
In it, Mursi appeared to write in English, “I am looking forward to exerting our best efforts to get the Middle east Peace Process back to its right track in order to achieve security and stability for all peoples of the region, including that Israeli people.” The Israeli president’s name was spelled “Perez.”
Then a spokesman for Mursi, Yasser Ali, said in Cairo that Mursi had not written a letter to the Israeli president at all.
“This is totally untrue,” Ali said, calling the letter a “fabrication.” He blamed two Israeli newspapers for manufacturing the letter — though it was released by the president’s office in Jerusalem.
An official in Peres’s office — speaking anonymously because the issue concerned sensitive diplomatic relations between the two countries — said the president’s aides received the official communique Tuesday from the Egyptian ambassador to Israel, both by registered mail and by fax from the embassy in Tel Aviv.
Peres’s office asked the Egyptian ambassador if it could publicize the letter or if it should be kept secret, the official said. The Egyptian envoy phoned Mursi’s office to inquire, the official said, and then told Peres’ aides that Mursi’s staff had given the green light to make the letter public.
Peres’s office sent reporters a copy of what was said to be the faxed letter. The top of the letter featured a time stamp with Tuesday’s date, the phone number from which the fax was sent, and the label “EGY EMB TEL AVIV.”
The fax number, which appeared to be printed automatically from the machine that sent the message, was a number listed on Israel’s Foreign Ministry website as belonging to the Egyptian Embassy in Israel.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry did not provide an immediate response on the issue.
This could be a symptom of Egypt’s murky governing situation. Though Mursi has taken office, it is still not clear what his powers are. The military council that took over after longtime President Hosni Mubarak was ousted last year assumed some presidential powers.
Also, the Brotherhood-dominated parliament has been dissolved, the military-appointed Cabinet is still in office, and the ministries and foreign service are mostly still in the hands of the old regime.
The disarray has led to conflicts, misunderstandings and power plays.
All that is in addition to the already complicated relations between Israel and Egypt. The two signed a peace treaty in 1979 but have rarely been close.
Mursi has pledged to respect Egypt’s international treaties, but the Brotherhood has said it may need to make adjustments to the Israel-Egypt peace agreement. The movement historically has been hostile to Israel.
The Ramadan message was Peres’s second letter to Mursi since he took office after winning Egypt’s first-ever free presidential election.
The Israeli president’s first letter, accompanied by a note from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was sent in late June. It congratulated Mursi on his election victory and emphasized the importance of peace to both Israel and Egypt.
The text of Netanyahu’s letter was not released, but an official in his office said the letter emphasized the importance of maintaining the peace treaty.
___
Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb contributed from Cairo.
LOS ANGELES/GENEVA: Fewer people infected with HIV globally are dying as more of them get access to crucial antiretroviral drugs, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the United Nations AIDS program said on Wednesday.
The United Nations estimates that about 34 million people are living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS. In a report released ahead of the International AIDS Society's 2012 annual meeting set for next week in Washington, D.C., it said that the number of worldwide AIDS-related deaths fell to 1.7 million last year from some 1.8 million in 2010. AIDS deaths peaked at 2.3 million in 2005.
The decline has been fueled by greater access to medications that help more people live with the disease. An estimated 8 million people in lower-income countries are receiving antiretroviral drugs, and the United Nations has set a target to raise that to 15 million by 2015.
Funding for HIV prevention and treatment totaled $16.8 billion last year. Of that amount, $8.2 billion came from international sources including the United States, which donated 48 percent of it. The amount of money spent by poor and middle-income countries reached $8.6 billion last year, surpassing international investment for the first time. The U.N. estimates that another $5 billion is needed to reach its 2015 goals.
The U.N. is also talking with pharmaceutical companies about how to improve access to lower-cost versions of simpler HIV treatments that combine several drugs in a single pill.
"We need innovation which will reduce the cost of medicine," Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS, said during a telephone interview. "If we want to maintain people on second- and third-line medicine it will not be possible with the price of the drugs we have today."
Paul De Lay, UNAIDS deputy executive director, speaking a briefing in Geneva, said overall progress in treating the disease could be jeopardized by a surge in infection seen in smaller patient groups, including in Eastern Europe and the United States.
"We are looking at an epidemic that's going to last another 40 to 50 years to get down to what we would consider the lowest possible number of infections," De Lay said.
"It reminds us that prevention must be sustained, just the way we talk about sustaining treatment. Until we have a vaccine this is still going to have to be part of all countries' health programs," he said.
LOOKING FOR MORE OPTIONS
Public health officials are considering wider use of HIV medications in people who are not infected with the virus but have a high risk of contracting it. Earlier this week, U.S. health regulators for the first time approved use of Gilead Sciences Inc's Truvada drug for preventing HIV.
Such antiretroviral drugs, also sold by companies like GlaxoSmithKline and Merck & Co, are designed to keep the virus that causes AIDS in check by suppressing viral replication in the blood.
Researchers are also working on using HIV-fighting antibodies to prevent infection, and they say their efforts could yield a licensed vaccine.
In the meantime, treating more people infected with HIV remains a priority. UNAIDS estimated that in sub-Saharan Africa, a region encompassing countries like Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, 31 percent fewer people died from AIDS-related causes in 2011 compared with 2005.
The region "has actually been able to scale up more than other parts of the world, more than Eastern Europe and Central Asia, more than North Africa and the Middle East, and even more than Asia, with a 62 percent coverage rate of people eligible for treatment able to access treatment," said Dr. Gottfried Hirnschall, director of the HIV Department at the World Health Organization.
Access to therapy also led to lower rates of AIDS-related deaths in Latin America, the Caribbean and Oceania.
In Western and Central Europe, as well as North America, where antiretroviral therapy is extensively available, the combined number of AIDS-related deaths has varied little over the past decade, totaling about 29,000 last year, according to the United Nations.
Death rates were also stable in Asia at an estimated 330,000, while AIDS-related deaths continued to rise in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.
New infections among children declined for the second year in a row amid focused efforts to protect them and their mothers against HIV. About 330,000 children were newly infected with HIV in 2011, down from 570,000 in 2003. (Reuters)
KARACHI: At least 21 patients suffering from dengue fever have been admitted to the hospitals within a period of one week, Sindh Health Department's Dengue Surveillance Cell revealed.
A total of 126 dengue cases have been reported since January of this year. The data is collected from hospitals registered with the government and update the concerned authorities on the matter regularly.
With monsoon yet to set in, the Sindh dengue surveillance cell has already recorded more than 100 dengue fever cases, which may increase after the rains.
According to World Health Organizaton, the disease is transmitted by the bite of an Aedes mosquito infected with any one of the four dengue viruses. It occurs in tropical and sub-tropical areas of the world. Symptoms appear 3-14 days after the infective bite. Dengue fever is a febrile illness that affects infants, young children and adults.
Symptoms range from a mild fever, to incapacitating high fever, with severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pain, and rash. There are no specific antiviral medicines for dengue. It is important to maintain hydration. Use of acetylsalicylic acid and non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs is not recommended.
Dengue haemorrhagic fever (fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, bleeding) is a potentially lethal complication, affecting mainly children. Early clinical diagnosis and careful clinical management by experienced physicians and nurses increase survival of patients.
KAMPALA: An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus that erupted in western Uganda at the start of July has killed 14 people, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Saturday.
The latest outbreak was in the western Kibaale district, around 200 kilometres (125 miles) west of the Ugandan capital Kampala, and around 50 kilometres from the border with Democratic Republic of Congo.
"We have confirmed 20 people who have contracted the virus of which 14 have died," Joaquim Sewaka, WHO Uganda representative said.
Sewaka said that teams from the Ugandan health ministry and the US government's Centre for Disease Control (CDC) had been dispatched to the area.
"The response is strong and we will try to set up quarantine points as soon as possible," Sewaka said.
The rare haemorrhagic disease, named after a small river in DR Congo, killed 37 people in western Uganda in 2007 and claimed the lives of at least 170 people in the north of the country in 2000. (AFP)
NEW YORK: Older patients who have a hip or knee replaced face an increased risk of heart attack in the two weeks after the procedure, according to an international study.
Researchers, whose findings appeared in the Archives of Internal Medicine, said that people having joint surgery had up to 31 times the risk of a heart attack shortly afterward.
"The risk of acute myocardial infarction is substantially increased in the first 2 weeks after total hip replacement (25-fold) and total knee replacement surgery (31-fold) compared with controls," wrote Arief Lalmohamed from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, who led the study.
The link between joint surgeries and heart problems was especially high for patients aged 80 or older, they found. But those under the age of 60 weren't at any higher risk.
Although it's not clear that the hip and knee procedures themselves triggered the heart attacks, researchers said it's reasonable to think they would have some role.
"Surgery is a risk, because surgery and anesthesia that you need to have the surgery increase stress levels for patients," said William Hozack, an orthopedic surgeon at the Rothman Institute in Philadelphia, who wasn't involved in the study.
The findings come from hospital records for 95,000 people who had a hip or knee replaced in Denmark between 1998 and 2007. The researchers compared each patient with three people, of the same age and gender, who didn't have a joint replaced.
Over the six weeks after their surgeries, one in 200 patients who had a hip replaced and one in 500 who underwent knee replacement had a heart attack.
The researchers couldn't account for everything about patients that might affect both their risk of needing a joint replaced and having a heart attack, such as being overweight or obese, or having high blood pressure.
Lalmohamed expects the procedures do have some direct impact on heart risk. Cutting into bones could promote clot formation in the bone marrow, especially in hip surgery, his team said.
Blood loss and oxygen deprivation can also happen during any major surgery, he told Reuters Health.
"These stressors are known to increase the risk of heart attack. Furthermore, the perioperative period itself is a very stressful time for the patient," he said, adding that patients should discuss their heart history with their doctor before surgery. (Reuters)
NEW YORK: Substituting almonds for less healthy foods could help dieters stick to a calorie-controlled diet, and lower their cholesterol at the same time, says a new study.
"Nuts, and in this case almonds, shouldn't be on the ‘do not eat' list, they can be effectively incorporated in a weight loss plan, with the caveat that they have to be portion controlled," said Dr. Gary Foster, who led the study at Temple University in Philadelphia.
The new study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and supported by the Almond Board of California, involved 123 generally healthy but obese people who followed a calorie-controlled diet for 18 months. Women ate 1,200-1,500 calories per day, while men ate 1,500-1,800.
Half the people, assigned at random by researchers, were given two 28-gram packages of almonds (about 24 almonds per package) to eat each day. That works out to about 350 calories' worth. The other half agreed to avoid nuts altogether.
When researchers checked in with dieters after six months, they found that the nut-free dieters had lost slightly more weight than the almond eaters: 16 pounds compared to 12 pounds, on average. A year later, both groups had gained some of their weight back, and there was no longer a clear difference in total weight loss between participants who did and didn't eat almonds.
Past research also suggests that nuts like almonds might play a role in reducing risk factors for heart disease, so Foster and his team expected to see some improvement in cholesterol and levels of blood fats known as triglycerides among the almond-eating dieters.
Six months into the study, cholesterol in the almond group had fallen 8.7 milligrams (mg) per deciliter (dL), on average, compared to 0.1 mg/dL in the nut-free group - keeping both groups under the 200 mg/dL limit for total cholesterol recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After 18 months, cholesterol levels had risen in both groups but were still lower, on average, in the almond group - although the difference could have been due to chance.
"This shows you can include almonds in the context of a weight control program, lose a significant amount of weight and get nice additional benefits in terms of cholesterol and triglycerides," said Foster.
Still, he urges caution. "Almonds don't make you lose weight; they're not free calories," he said.
‘GOOD QUALITY FATS'
It can be difficult for dieters to stay on track for as long as 18 months, and healthy people have fewer incentives to lose weight than those with health problems, said Dr. Michelle Wien, a nutrition researcher at Loma Linda University in California, who wasn't involved in the study.
In their report, researchers point to a lack of difference in blood fats at the end of the study as evidence that participants stopped following the diet over time. That's normal in any type of weight loss program, said Wien.
Snacks like nuts - promoted as a healthy source of nutrients by the U.S. Department of Agriculture - are generally considered off-limits to dieters because of their high fat content. Almonds are particularly rich in magnesium, potassium and vitamin E, as well as being a good source of fiber and calcium, according to the study's funder, the Almond Board of California.
When dieters are limiting how many calories they eat, it's important they eat foods that are nutrient dense, with a nice level of vitamins and minerals, and good quality fats, said Wien.
It's a comfort for people who are struggling with weight management, said Wien. They often crave something crunchy, something palatable with a nice texture, she added.
Foster agreed. If people can eat foods they enjoy when they're dieting, they are more likely to stick to their weight loss plan, and keep the weight off, said Foster.
The message to dieters is not ‘eat all the almonds you want and you'll lose weight,' but you can effectively incorporate almonds as part of a weight controlled diet," said Foster.(Reuters)
MIRANSHAH: Pakistani tribesmen have endorsed ban on polio vaccinations, closing the door to the prospect of any child being vaccinated in North Waziristan as part of a nationwide campaign.
Officials had pinned their last hopes of inoculating children in the northwestern district on talks with tribesmen, which were successively delayed until Wednesday, the last day of the nationwide campaign.
"Polio vaccination will be banned until drone attacks are stopped," tribal elder Qadir Khan told a gathering of more than 200 elders and Islamic scholars in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan.
"Drones martyr so many children, while polio afflicts one or two out of hundreds of thousands," said tribal elder Maamoor Khan.
North Waziristan administrator Siraj Ahmed Khan said he had sought to convince the tribesmen to accept the vaccinations for the disease, which leaves children crippled for life.
"Polio is rampant in tribal areas and government desires to prevent its spread," Khan told the meeting. (AFP)
AUCKLAND: Long viewed as a contributing factor in teenage isolation, computer games are now being used to treat adolescent depression in an innovative New Zealand programme.
Rather than simply encouraging players to engage in mindless destruction, the SPARX video game attempts to teach teenagers how to deal with depression using a psychological approach known as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).
Just as importantly, its creators set out to make the game exciting for those teenagers who are often reluctant to seek counselling and bored by well-meaning advice on how to cope with depression.
The result is a role-playing fantasy game, where teenagers adopt a warrior avatar and get to blast negative thoughts with fireballs while trying to save the world from sinking into a mire of pessimism and despair.
Project leader Sally Merry, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Auckland University, said the unconventional approach had proved popular with teenagers, allowing them to address their issues in privacy and at their own pace.
"You can deal with mental health problems in a way that doesn't have to be deadly serious," she said. "The therapy doesn't have to be depressing in and of itself. We're aiming to make it fun."
International studies consistently show New Zealand has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the developed world and Merry said she was keen to make treatment for depression more accessible.
"The problem of depression in young people is an international one, it's common and mostly untreated," she said.
Merry said 75-80 percent of adolescents who suffered depression received no help at all, leading to potential problems such as poor school grades, social isolation and a negative outlook.
"Often young people can be feeling low and not really realise what it is," she said.
"They just know that they're feeling 'blah' and accept that as something they have to put up with. SPARX and cognitive behavioural therapy show them we don't have to accept that."
NEW YORK: Some women with unexplained fatigue may get a bit more pep from iron supplements - even if they do not have full-blown anemia, a new clinical trial suggests.
The study focused on women who were chronically tired and had relatively low iron stores. They did not, however, have full-blown iron-deficiency anemia, in which the body has too few oxygen-carrying red blood cells.
It has not been clear whether iron supplements can help battle fatigue in non-anemic women.
To find out, Swiss researchers randomly assigned 200 women with unexplained fatigue to take either 80 milligrams of iron a day or a placebo (identical-looking pills with no active ingredient.)
Over 12 weeks, both groups improved. But women on iron supplements fared better, the researchers report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
On average, scores on a standard measure of fatigue fell by nearly half - from about 25 to 13, on a scale of zero to 40 - among women getting the extra iron.
That compared with a 29 percent decline in fatigue reported by the placebo group, whose average score fell from about 25 to just over 16.
The findings suggest that when a woman's persistent fatigue cannot be explained by any health condition, low iron should become a suspect, according to lead researcher Paul Vaucher, a doctoral candidate at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
Physicians often test for iron deficiency by measuring blood levels of hemoglobin, a protein in blood cells that carries oxygen. But hemoglobin levels usually don't fall until the later stages of iron deficiency, when a person has full-blown anemia.
In their study, Vaucher's team measured women's blood levels of ferritin, which is a marker of the body's stored iron. Doctors may or may not order that test when looking for iron deficiency.
Vaucher said that for a woman with unexplained fatigue, measuring ferritin would be wise.
"This marker will then give a better idea of whether iron load is low or not, even if women are not anemic," Vaucher said in an email.
All of the women in this study had ferritin levels below 50 micrograms per liter, which would be considered low to borderline-low.
Since women in the placebo group also improved, the effects of the iron supplement were not huge. They amounted to an extra 3.5 points shaved off a woman's fatigue score.
"That might seem like a small difference," said Dr. Christine Gerbstadt, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics who was not involved in the study.
But, she said in an interview, the iron-pill advantage was still significant in statistical terms, and that's something doctors should be aware of.
Fatigue is complex and subjective, and women in the placebo group might have improved for a number of reasons, Gerbstadt noted. Some, for example, may have started getting more sleep and generally taking better care of themselves.
So if you're habitually worn out, could taking iron be worth it?
Gerbstadt cautioned that you should first see a doctor to try to get at the cause of your fatigue. She said a range of problems, from depression to sleep disorders to physical health conditions, can lead to fatigue.
"It may or may not be iron," Gerbstadt said.
Vaucher, whose study was funded by Pierre Fabre Médicament, a French maker of pharmaceutical and health products, agreed.
"We do know (fatigue) is related to many different diseases that can be treated," he said. "Iron deficiency should therefore only be considered once other causes have been ruled out by a physician."
On top of that, iron pills can have side effects, like constipation, diarrhea and nausea. In this study, 35 percent of iron users reported at least one side effect - though 25 percent of placebo users did as well.
In general, experts recommend that women in their reproductive years get 18 milligrams of iron per day, and no more than 40 mg. (If you are actually iron deficient, your doctor may recommend supplements with a higher dose.)
Iron deficiency is much less common in men and in women who are past menopause. The current study included only women who were still menstruating (which increases the chances of low iron), so the findings do not apply to men or postmenopausal women.
To help prevent iron deficiency in the first place, experts advise getting a balanced diet that includes food rich in iron - like beef, poultry, fortified cereals, beans and spinach. Eating vitamin C-rich foods will also help your body absorb the iron in plant foods. (Reuters)
TOKYO: Japanese women lost their longevity crown last year after 26 years at the top of world life expectancy rankings, the government said on Thursday, blaming the 2011 earthquake and tsunami for the drop.
The health and labor ministry said the disaster, which left nearly 20,000 dead or missing, was mainly behind a decline in average lifespan by 0.4 years to 85.90 years. That put Japanese women behind Hong Kong, in the top spot with 86.7 years.
The ministry said a rise in the number of suicides last year also contributed to the decline.
For men, average life expectancy fell 0.11 years to 79.44, leaving them tied for 7th place with Italians. Switzerland led male longevity rankings with average expectancy of 80.2 years.
As a result of advances in health care and falling birth rates, Japan, the world's 10th most populous nation, has become one of the world's oldest and fastest ageing societies.
The trend has been particularly pronounced in the northeast, where, even before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, scarcity of jobs had been driving young people away. Many of the victims of the disaster were elderly residents who stayed behind. (Reuters)
KAMPALA: An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus has killed 13 people in Uganda and efforts are under way to contain the hemorrhagic fever, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Saturday.
There is no treatment and no vaccine against Ebola, which is transmitted by close personal contact and, depending on the strain, kills up to 90 per cent of those who contract the virus.
Joaquim Saweka, WHO's representative in Uganda, said that although suspected Ebola infections emerged in early July in Kibale district, about 170km west of the capital Kampala, the outbreak was not confirmed until yesterday.
"There are a total of 20 people suspected to have contracted Ebola and 13 of them have died," Mr Saweka said.
A team of experts from the government, WHO and CDC (US Centres for Disease Control) are in the field and following up on all suspected cases and those who got into contact with patients."
Mr Saweka said the origin of the outbreak had not yet been confirmed, but 18 of the 20 cases are understood to be linked to one family.
Kibale is near the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where the virus emerged in 1976, taking its name from the Ebola River.
The symptoms include sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat, followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rashes, impaired kidney and liver function and both internal and external bleeding.
Ebola was last reported in Uganda in May last year when it killed a 12-year-old girl. The country's most devastating outbreak was in 2000 when 425 people were infected, more than half of whom died. (Reuters)
KUALA LUMPUR: Conjoined 15-month-old twins attached at the pelvis and sharing three legs were successfully separated at a Malaysian hospital in a complex 24-hour operation, reports said Saturday.
The boys, Muaiman and Muaimin Azli, were separated at Hospital Kuala Lumpur in an operation involving a 60-strong medical team, including 19 surgeons and anaethetists, The Star reported.
"With proper rehabilitation, both boys can lead a fairly normal and independent life," Zakaria Zahari, the head of the paediatric surgery at the government hospital was quoted by The Star as saying.
Zakaria said the case was the hospital's most complex so far because the twins shared genitalia and a bladder.
"The sexual and reproductive functions of both twins will be assessed further as they grow," he said.
Both boys are in a stable condition following the July 14 operation. Muaimin will get a prosthetic leg, while Muaiman will keep both of his legs.
"For now, I'm just glad that they are safe," the twins' father, 40-year-old mechanic Azli Sabran, told The Star.
A hospital official confirmed the surgery was successful but could not immediately provide further details.
The twins are the 14th conjoined pair to be separated at the hospital and the 21st in the country, according to The Star.
Zakaria said one in every 250,000 to 500,000 live births in Malaysia, which has a population of 28 million people, involved conjoined twins but not all survived, especially if they were joined at the heart.
Kuala Lumpur Hospital also became the first government hospital to perform a kidney transplant between a married couple with different blood groups in an eight-hour surgery Tuesday, the New Straits Times reported.
WASHINGTON: The world's largest meeting on HIV/AIDS opens Sunday in the US capital with calls to speed up the global response to the three-decade-long epidemic that killed 1.5 million people last year.
The 19th International AIDS Conference is expected to draw 25,000 people, including politicians, scientists and activists, as well as some of the estimated 34 million people living with HIV who will tell their stories.
Among them is the only man who has achieved a functional cure of HIV though a bone marrow transplant, American Timothy Brown, who is scheduled to appeal for a fresh push toward a cure during the six-day conference that runs through July 27.
Other high-profile appearances include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former president Bill Clinton, former first lady Laura Bush, singer Elton John, philanthropist Bill Gates and actress Whoopi Goldberg.
President Barack Obama has faced some criticism for his decision not to attend in person. He is sending a video message and will invite some attendees to the White House for talks on Thursday, a top health official said.
Held every two years, the conference -- whose theme this year is "Turning the Tide" -- is returning to the United States for the first time since 1990, after being kept away by laws that barred people with HIV from traveling to the country.
The US ban was formally lifted in 2009, and researchers have described fresh optimism in the fight against AIDS on several fronts.
Deaths and infections are down in the parts of the world most ravaged by the disease, while the number of people on treatment has risen 20 percent from 2010 to 2011, reaching eight million people in needy countries.
However, this is only about half the people who should be on treatment worldwide, signaling that much more remains to be done.
More than 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, a higher number than ever before, and around 30 million have died from AIDS-related causes since the disease first emerged in the 1980s, according to UNAIDS.
Advances in antiretroviral medication have transformed the disease from a death sentence into a manageable condition for many sufferers, and may offer new paths toward prevention according to recent research.
But there remains a major gap in the United States between the number of people diagnosed and the number with their viral load under control through medication, a phenomenon known as the "treatment cascade."
Even though 80 percent of people with HIV in America are aware of their status, just 28 percent have the disease under control.
The hunt for a cure, which has eluded scientists, will be another hot topic. HIV co-discoverer and Nobel laureate Francoise Barre-Sinoussi announced on Thursday a new roadmap for scientists in research toward a cure.
And Brown, also known as the "Berlin patient," will address the conference on Tuesday at 1500 GMT to publicize new efforts in this direction.
Funding is at a critical juncture, with many nations boosting their domestic spending on the disease while international donations remain flat.
Total worldwide investment in HIV was $16.8 billion last year, an 11 percent rise from 2010, but still far short of the $22-24 billion needed by 2015, according to a UNAIDS report released Wednesday.
Doctors Without Borders has called for doubling the pace of treatment and doubling funds to reach all those who need treatment.
ISLAMABAD: With bundle of blessings the holy month of Ramazan offers for human beings, the bad habit of smoking can also be avoided through fasting.
Fasting is considered as a strong tool to maintain good health and effective cure for various psychological and medical disorders and health experts suggest fasting as a best way to quit smoking.
"The holy month of Ramadan serves as a best exercise for smokers to maintain good health and avoid bad habits of nicotine dependency to stay normal," said Dr Haseeb Sitaar of Holy Family hospital.
Fasting keeps a person healthy and clean both physically and spiritually and when it comes to quit smoking, it can be a best way for those having serious infections from smoking, he said.
In normal days, it becomes hard for smokers to leave smoking completely as hectic routine and other social pressures compel some to smoke while the period of fasting keeps them away from smoking.
Fasting is a religious obligation and the faithful follow this
obligation prior to anything else during Ramadan, which leads them to
avoiding all the bad habits.
Taking a month-long break from the practice of smoking sometimes get converted to a permanent avoidance of health hazardous things.
"Will power is needed to quit smoking, which the fasting provides people during this holy month and the people refrain themselves to smoke to fulfill their religious obligation," Dr Haseeb said.
Other than Ramadan, smokers experience withdrawal symptoms, like irritability, anger, restlessness, impatience, insomnia and difficulty concentrating but the fasting helps them to maintain patience.
"Fasting is a spiritual help to spend smoke-free days during Ramadan and an excellent practice for leaving many bad habits," said Hanif Ejaz, a student suffering from serious infections of smoking. (APP)
LARKANA: Three newborn babies died at Children Hospital Larkana allegedly because of doctors’ negligence, Geo News reported.
The heirs of the children along with the bodies of the newborn protested outside the hospital. They alleged that their babies died owing to negligence of the doctors. They also staged sit-in outside the hospital.
Meanwhile, Medical Superintendent Children Hospital Dr Ashfaq Memon has rejected the claims of heirs of the newborn, saying two twin babies were brought from Shahdadkot who died before arriving the hospital, while the third was shifted from a private hospital in serious condition but could not survive.
BOSTON: Hospitals in several US states are scrambling to check if patients were exposed to the hepatitis C virus by an itinerant medical technician charged last week in connection with an outbreak in New Hampshire.
The worker, David Matthew Kwiatkowski, was charged with federal drug crimes. Authorities say the Michigan native stole drugs and contaminated needles while working at New Hampshire's Exeter Hospital Cardiac Catheterization Unit in 2011 and 2012.
Kwiatkowski allegedly injected himself with the painkiller Fentanyl intended for patients, and left the syringes for the hospital to re-use.
Hepatitis C is caused by a virus that attacks the liver, and is considered among the most serious hepatitis viruses. It is passed through contact with contaminated blood, often through shared needles.
Most people do not know they have the infection until liver damage shows up years or decades later. It can lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer.
Kwiatkowski is believed to have had hepatitis C since at least June 2010. Thirty cases of the same strain have been confirmed among patients from the New Hampshire hospital's cardiac catheterization lab.
New Hampshire health authorities are asking as many as 6,000 patients treated in the hospital's operating rooms and intensive care units between April 2011 and May 2012 to be urgently tested for possible exposure.
Before New Hampshire Kwiatkowski, 32, worked as a radiology technician and in cardiac labs in at least ten hospitals in Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Kansas, Georgia, and possibly Arizona from 2007 to 2011.
A class-action lawsuit and separate negligence complaint were filed this week in US District Court in Nebraska against Triage Staffing, a medical staffing agency that hired and placed Kwiatkoswki at Exeter Hospital. (Reuters)
KARACHI: Two men of Rangers were shot and killed by unknown armed assailants in mobile market near Bacha Khan Chowk, Banaras, Orangi Town, Geo News reported Tuesday.
According to sources, the personnel of paramilitary force were targeted and killed by the unknown armed men.
