Pigeon
lovers set for the battle of Trafalgar
LONDON, Dec 13: Pigeon lovers are
set to take London Mayor Ken Livingstone
to court to force him to let them
continue feeding the birds he calls
''flying rats'' in the capital's
Trafalgar Square.
The Save
the Trafalgar Square Pigeons (STTSP)
action group has been battling a campaign
launched by Livingstone six years ago to
rid the central London square of its
pigeons, which he says are a nuisance and
a health hazard.
The sale
to the public of bird seed has been
banned and hawks have been brought in to
scare the pigeons away.
The group
says Livingstone has broken an agreement
to allow them to feed the birds as part
of a plan to eradicate them by a gradual
reduction in feeding and to donate 3,000
pounds for the bird food.
The
compromise agreement to limit breeding
rather than starve the pigeons to death
has brought their numbers down to about
1,500 from 4,000, according to the STTSP.
''We
opposed the Mayor's plans to reduce
pigeon numbers but agreed to work with
him to reduce numbers humanely,'' said
STTSP spokesman Niel Hansen.
''And now
he repays us by stabbing us in the back
and reneging on our agreement.''
The group
said in a statement it was issuing legal
proceedings against Livingstone in
Central London County Court, seeking an
order forcing him to allow their feeding
to continue.
The
mayor's office said it withdrew
permission for the feeding scheme in June
after ''rogue'' feeding on the square's
north terrace, which is controlled by
Westminster City Council and does not
come under the bylaw banning unauthorised
feeding.
''As there
is persistent and anti-social feeding by
pigeon-rights activists on the North
Terrace ... There is simply no case for
feeding the feral pigeon colony in the
Trafalgar Square area,'' a Greater London
Authority (GLA) spokesperson said.
Livingstone
has come under fire from animal rights
campaigners around the world and from
political opponents complaining about the
cost of driving the pigeons away.
The London
Assembly opposition Liberal Democrats
have said the hawks have cost taxpayers
at least 226,000 pounds. (AGENCIES)
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Spend
big on wrinkle creams? Don't bother:Study
NEW YORK, Dec 13: Spend a fortune on
anti-wrinkle creams? Don't bother, said a
US study.
Luxury-price
products don't work any better than
drugstore brands, according to the study
by Consumer Reports magazine, released
yesterday which ranked Olay Regenerist,
priced at about 19 dollars, as the most
effective in reducing wrinkles.
But none
of these products made a significant
difference in the skin's appearance.
Researchers
found that after 12 weeks the top-rated
products smoothed out some fine lines and
wrinkles, but even the best performers
reduced the average depth of wrinkles by
less than 10 per cent, a change barely
visible to the naked eye.
''The
tests revealed that, on average, these
products made little difference the
skin's appearance and there's no
correlation between price and
effectiveness,'' a spokeswoman for the
magazine said.
Americans
spend over 1 billion dollars a year on
anti-wrinkle creams.
Consumer
Reports, published by nonprofit consumer
research group Consumer Union, chose a
sample of top-selling mass-market lines
for its study. The products were
purchased in retail stores for between 19
dollars and 355 dollars. Each cream was
tested by 17 to 23 women, aged between 30
and 70.
The women
were recruited and evaluated by a
European laboratory specializing in
cosmetic testing.
The women
used a test product on one side of their
face and the lab's standard moisturizer
on the other side for comparison. A
high-tech optical device was used to
detect changes in wrinkle depth and skin
roughness.
Results
varied among the women, the study said.
Dr Tina
Alster, a dermatologic laser surgeon from
Georgetown University Medical Center in
Washington, DC, and a member of the
American Academy of Dermatologists, said
it was overly simplistic to conclude from
such a limited study that these products
did not work.
''People
would love to believe that cheap products
are the same as the more expensive ones,
and I may pooh-pooh someone paying 500
dollar for a cream, but I do see the
value of some of the luxury brands which
are science-based,'' she said. ''But it
is a cautionary tale that people should
be looking at the ingredients rather than
just at the packaging.''
Despite
the study's findings, some women said
they would continue to use anti-wrinkle
cream.
''I've
never really believed these creams would
stop wrinkles, but they make me feel and
smell good,'' said Amira Thoron, a
36-year-old New York teacher.
(AGENCIES)
More
Americans facing high healthcare costs
NEW YORK, Dec 13: A growing number of
Americans are devoting a large share of
their paychecks to healthcare, and some
are skipping medical care because of it,
researchers said.
In 2003,
48.8 million Americans younger than 65
lived in a household that spent more than
10 per cent of the family income on
healthcare, according to a study by the
US Department of Health and Human
Services. That figure was up by 11.7
million from 1996.
Low-income
families were among those most likely to
devote a large share of income to
healthcare, the study found. Other groups
with higher-than-average financial
burdens included people living in rural
areas, adults between the ages of 55 and
64, and people with chronic health
conditions.
In
addition, more than half of Americans
with health insurance that wasn't from a
group plan spent at least 10 per cent of
their family income on healthcare -- a
rate nearly three times that of Americans
covered by employer-sponsored health
plans.
Not
unexpectedly, people with higher personal
costs were more likely than other
Americans to put off medical care for
financial reasons. For people in poor
health, this could have ''severe
consequences,'' the study authors report
in today's issue of the Journal of the
American Medical Association.
The
findings are based on data from federal
health surveys onducted in 1996 and 2003.
Each one questioned a nationally
representative sample of Americans --
19,022 adults younger than 65 in 1996,
and 28,970 in 2003.
Drs
Jessica S Banthin and Didem M Bernard of
the health department's Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality estimate
that in 1996, nearly 16 percent of
Americans -- or roughly 37 million people
-- spent more than 10 percent of the
family income on healthcare. That
included money paid toward insurance
premiums as well as direct medical
expenses.
By 2003,
that percentage had grown to more than 19
per cent, or 48.8 million Americans, the
researchers found. Of these, 18.7 million
spent more than 20 percent of their
paycheck on healthcare.
Americans
in this latter group spent an average of
5,794 dollars on healthcare in 2003,
according to Banthin and Bernard, which
was more than twice the average for all
Americans younger than 65. Moreover, 5
per cent said they had delayed or skipped
medical care because of money.
The
findings also underscore the high
healthcare expenses of Americans who get
health insurance on their own rather an
employer, the researchers point out.
Other studies, they note, have found that
the non-group health insurance market is
''small, volatile and subject to
potential market failures.''
People in
non-group plans, the researchers add,
tend to have much higher healthcare costs
than people with any other type of
insurance, and even those who lack
insurance altogether. (AGENCIES)
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