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lifestyle leading to rise in diabetes in India GENEVA, May 6: Western lifestyle is the fast emerging as the biggest threat contributing to the sharp .......more
Breakaway PML ISLAMABAD, May 6: A powerful faction of the former ruling Pakistan Muslim League today......more |
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Olga’s
Afghan aide seeks anticipatory bail NEW DELHI, May 6: Del Agha, an Afghan aide of Uzbek woman Olga Kozireva, accused of running a smuggling racket in the country in connivance with some senior customs officials, has moved a Delhi court for anticipatory bail. In his application filed before Special Judge R L Chugh, Agha requested the court to grant him anticipatory bail as he was the only parent to look after.....more Pak
no longer WASHINGTON, May 6: The United States has said Pakistan was no longer helping the Taliban with men and materials and was committed to implementing the arms embargo and other UN sanctions imposed on Kabul. .....more |
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Western lifestyle leading to rise in diabetes in India GENEVA, May 6: Western lifestyle is the fast emerging as the biggest threat contributing to the sharp rise in the incidents of diabetes in India, experts warned at the two-day international conference, diabetes dialogue, here. "There is no question about this," said Dr Pierre Lefebvre, President elect of the International Diabetes Federation and Emeritus Professor of Medicine at University of Liege at Belgium. "It is very clear that one main factor leading to increase in incidence of type two diabetes (non insulin dependent) is the changes in eating habits, increasing weight and decreasing physical activity, Lefebvre told PTI. "This is the result of coca-colanisation or mcdonaldisation of life styles", he said on the sidelines of the conference which ended yesterday. It was attended by some 400 diabetes experts from all over the world. Type two diabetes accounts for some 90-95 per cent of all diabetes cases and affects adults. In contrast, type one diabetes, also called insulin dependent diabetes, usually occurs in children and adults below 30 years of age and accounts for 5-10 per cent of cases. India has the largest diabetes population in the world, some 30 million diabetics or a quarter of the world’s diabetes population. A vast majority of them remain oblivious that they suffer from diabetes. Despite a fast proliferating diabetic population, Governmental efforts in dealing with it continue to be dismal. Urban prevalence of diabetes in India has gone up from 11.8 per cent in 1998 to 13.2 in 2000, according to the latest national urban diabetes study by diabetes epidemiology study group in India and Novo Nordisk Education Foundation. The study covered six big Indian cities - Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Calcutta. "Currently there are 151 million people worldwide with diabetes", said Lars Almblom Jorgenson, Chief Operating Officer of Novo Nordisk, which produces bulk of global supply of insulin, "but only 50 million of these are aware of it." According to World Health Organisation, diabetes is a leading cause of blindness in the developed world. After 15 years of diabetes, two per cent people become blind while 10 per cent develop severe visual handicap. Other complications arising from diabetes include kidney failure, heart disease, sensory loss and gangrenes leading to limb amputations. Who estimates that by 2025, number of diabetics worldwide would reach 300 million (a vast majority being in developing countries). A new case is diagnosed every 40 seconds. "The numbers are increasing frightfully fast in countries like India", said Jorgenson. "It is mind boggling to think in 25 years from now there will be more people in reproductive age between 20-45 in the developing countries suffering from diabetes while in the developed world people in the above 65-year bracket will be diabetics," he added. Despite advances, there is no cure in sight for the disease in the near future, experts issued a grim warning. "We must be careful not to raise false hopes by speaking of `cures’ for diabetes at this time or in the near future", added Pierre De Meyts, Scientific Director of the Receptor Biology Laboratory at Hagedon Research Institute in Denmark. (PTI) |
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Breakaway PML
faction offers to back ISLAMABAD, May 6: A powerful faction of the former ruling Pakistan Muslim League today offered to elect military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf President if he restores the suspended Parliament. "If he restores Parliament and wants to be elected President, we will give serious consideration to the matter," Abida Hussain, information secretary of the breakaway faction of the Pakistan Muslim League told the Associated Press. Hussain, along with several other staunch Pakistan Muslim League members, revolted against deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, following the bloodless military coup in October 1999 that brought the Army into power in Pakistan and landed Sharif in jail on several charges. The dissidents formed a breakaway faction, dismissing Sharif as party leader. The dissident group says it has the support of 88 of the 133 former Pakistan Muslim League lawmakers in Parliament, which was suspended by the Army. There has been considerable speculation in Pakistani news papers that Musharraf plans to appoint himself President when he returns the country to democracy sometime before the end of 2002. The military’s recent creation of the new position of Deputy Army chief was seen as a stepping stone toward making the Army chief President. (AP) |
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Olga’s Afghan aide seeks anticipatory bail NEW DELHI, May 6: Del Agha, an Afghan aide of Uzbek woman Olga Kozireva, accused of running a smuggling racket in the country in connivance with some senior customs officials, has moved a Delhi court for anticipatory bail. In his application filed before Special Judge R L Chugh, Agha requested the court to grant him anticipatory bail as he was the only parent to look after his seven-year-old daughter Wahida, who was a chronic patient of Thalassemia major since birth. His wife died in an accident last year. He said his daughter required constant attendance by an adult member of the family and that he was the only person to arrange blood transfusion for her every 2-3 weeks without which she could not survive. The court has asked CBI to show if there was anyone else to look after the ailing child after the probe agency opposed his bail plea. The court would take up the matter tomorrow. The court also asked Agha’s counsel Siddharth Luthra to establish that the address given in the bail application was true as CBI said the accused had given false address. Agha said he was an Afghan national permanently residing in India for over six years and granted refugee status by the United Nations High Commission for Refusees (UNHCR). In its FIR CBI has named Del Agha and another Afghan National Mamoor Khan as Olga’s aides - who had fled before the March 31 CBI raids at the offices and residences of 48 customs officials across the country. CBI alleged that Agha and Mamoor used to bribe customs officials for clearing the baggages of Uzbek women including Olga, who is currently lodged in Tihar jail. (PTI) |
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Pak no longer helping Taliban, says US WASHINGTON, May 6: The United States has said Pakistan was no longer helping the Taliban with men and materials and was committed to implementing the arms embargo and other UN sanctions imposed on Kabul. A senior USAID official said this in response to a question about the State Department’s report on ‘patterns of global terrorism, 2000’ which had said that though Pakistan was committed to implementing the UN resolution, it is providing Kabul with material, fuel funding, technical assistance, besides military advisers. "The report was a 2000 report. It is not talking about today," Mr Morris told reporters at a comprehensive briefing on Afghanistan, arranged by the State Department, on the relief efforts initiated in the drought-prone and war-torn country. Mr Morris said in the current situation, Pakistan will abide by the conditions of the UN Security Council resolution 1333 which imposed sanctions on the Taliban regime. Saying that Washington expected Pakistan to respect the UN sanctions in future dealings with Taliban, Mr Morris, however, did not indicate whether the compliance by Islamabad had begun or was yet to take off. Giving details, a senior State Department official, Jeffrey Lundstead, said a team which undertook a tour of Afghanistan confirmed that poppy cultivation had been virtually eliminated in the country this year. "This is quite an extraordinary fact," he said. Poppy plantation and the presence of Saudi billionaire Osama Bin Laden have been the main irritants in US-Taliban relations during the last two years. "A UN drug control programme’s team, which includes officials from the UN and other countries, are assessing whether the poppy ban of the Taliban is real. I think the general conclusion is that it is quite real and there is minimal poppy plantation this year," Mr Morris said in reply to another question. He said Washington was in touch with the Taliban even after the implementation of the UN resolution asking the Taliban to close down their New York office. He added that the Taliban representative in New York spoke to him over telephone, informing him of their decision to close down the UN office in Afghanistan. "I told him it was a bad idea and that they should do something else," Mr Morris added. (UNI) |
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