In locked-down Baghdad, city life moves online

BAGHDAD, Oct 3: In the endless daily battle against the fear and isolation of life under lock-down, the people of Baghdad have found a way to keep their city alive: moving it online.

Instead of enjoying an outdoor meal at one of the fish restaurants along the Tigris embankment, 28-year-old housewife Dunya Saad spends her evenings at the computer in her living room, chatting with her friends on Yahoo! Messenger.

Most of her relatives and friends live on the far side of the Tigris, and seeing them in person is nearly impossible.

''It's sad not to see your friends like in the good old days,'' she sighed. ''But online chatting has made things better.''

Since the February bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra sparked a wave of sectarian bloodshed, the Internet has gone from being a hobby for tech-savvy enthusiasts to a mass replacement for the daily interactions of city life.

In Baghdad, shops close early. Cars are not permitted on the streets after 9:00 p.M. Many parts of the city are completely deserted by sunset.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to move to parts of the city where they do not know the neighbours.

''I only go out on emergencies like attending a funeral or visiting a doctor,'' said Zainab, 35, an office secretary who asked to be identified by her first name. ''Honestly, the outside craziness freaks me out.''

She has not seen her friends for months. Instead, she meets them over online video-conferences.

''Most of the time we talk about the security situation. Who had been killed, kidnapped, or recently fled the country.''

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

Moving Baghdad into cyberspace has been a feat of free- market ingenuity.

Perhaps the hardest part is electricity. Much of Baghdad had electricity for 12-18 hours a day before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Most neighbourhoods now get electricity from the grid for just four to six hours a day.

It means ordinary people have to know their ohms from their amperes and their megabits from their kilohertz.

Most middle class households now have cables snaking down the street to a neighbourhood ''generator man'' who gives them diesel-generated power for a monthly fee of about 10 dollars per ampere. Six or seven amperes are usually enough for a computer, a TV and a fridge. An air conditioner costs more.

A neighbourhood Internet cafe will sell a subscription for wireless Wi-Fi access to its satellite broadband hookup for about 40 dollars a month.

Most Iraqis have only experienced the Internet since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The ousted leader officially linked Iraq to the Web when his government set up the State Company for Internet Services in 2000. But private connections were banned and the only legal provider blocked access to e-mail and chat sites.

Companies have today sprung up around Baghdad, taking advantage of new broadband satellite connections that make it possible to establish a mini internet service provider without relying on any centralised infrastructure at all.

Ali Youssif, whose company Infozone runs four Internet providers in different parts of Baghdad, says he subscribes to satellite broadband connections from firms in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

One of his providers has a two-megabit-per-second connection -- a similar speed to a single home's broadband link in most Western countries -- which costs about 7,000 dollars a month over satellite.

It sells access to 200 subscribers across three Baghdad neighbourhoods, earning a total of about 8,000 dollars in revenue.

Private generators power the Wi-Fi hotspots during the day, with batteries offering up to 200 amperes of power to keep them running without interruption through the night.

LOVE ONLINE

For freelance journalist Ammar Ali, 30, the Internet is a place to find love in a city where flirting with a woman can get a man kidnapped or killed.

He has only been online for about a year, but he already has a long list of ''female friends'' with whom he keeps in touch on a nearly daily basis. Some live in other neighbourhoods, some in other countries.

''It's not like reality. But I enjoy it,'' he says. ''It's a good means to escape our miserable reality. At least, until a new morning comes.''(AGENCIES)

China set to curtail TV serials showing extramarital affairs

BEIJING, Oct 3: China, witnessing soaring divorces, may restrict the number of soap operas and TV dramas depicting extramarital affairs, the state media reported today.

The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, is planning restrictions, although no timetable has been set, Beijing-based ‘Legal Evening News’ reported.

Television series featuring crime and soap operas showing ancient China or marriage and family life used to be the focus of TV popular culture.

However, as it was believed that soap operas about crime could have a negative impact on young people, the government decided in 2004 to withdraw such TV series from prime time slots on major stations.

More soap operas focused on extramarital affairs because the producers thought they would have a larger audience than before, ‘China Daily’ reported.

But some scholars hit back, saying the market should decide what is suitable content for a TV series, not the government.

An arts professor at Peking University, Zhang Yiwu said that although soap operas on marriage issues have many shortcomings, the government should deal with the issue prudently.

"Many people love to watch such television series. Such operas also give warnings not to break the law," he said.

Quoting the findings of an online survey, the paper said that over half the people questioned said soap operas showing extramarital affairs would have a negative impact on the stability of marriage and affect the development of young people. (PTI)

Indonesian Muslims axe 100-year-old tree

JAKARTA, Oct 3: Muslim hard-liners chopped up a 100-year-old banyan tree in Jakarta to halt a rumour about its special powers from spreading among superstitious locals, prompting city authorities to report the attackers to police, officials said today.

Islam is a strongly monotheistic religion, and believing in any power other than God is considered a grave sin. Hard-liners in Indonesia often criticise other Muslims for still practicing Hindu, Buddhist and animist rituals that predate Islam's arrival in the archipelago.

The sprawling tree's branches were hacked away Sunday, leaving just its trunk, said Sarwo Handayani, head of the city's park agency.

Earlier, rumours had spread that cutting down the tree would bring bad luck because it was spared during a tree-felling drive to make way for a new bus lane in central Jakarta, Handayani said.

He said the rumours gained strength after unidentified people left offerings at the tree's base.

Handayani dismissed the rumours of supernatural involvement as nonsense, saying officials did not fell the tree because the bus lane could be routed around it.

"This was an outrageous act," he said of the damage to the tree, adding that he had reported it to police on Sunday as an act of vandalism. (AP)

Japan PM to visit China, Korea on Oct 8,9-NHK

TOKYO, Oct 3: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office last week, will visit China on October 8 and South Korea on October 9 for fence-mending summits, public broadcaster NHK said on Tuesday.

Leaders of the two countries, where bitter memories of Japan's wartime aggression run deep, had refused to meet Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, because of his visits to a Tokyo war shrine seen by many as a symbol of Japan's militaristic past.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said he could not confirm the dates reported, while Japanese media said the government was likely to make an official announcement tomorrow.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hakubun Shimomura told a news conference that negotiations were being made with both nations for summits.

''On the question of the Japan-China summit, both sides are making efforts to bring it about quickly. Japan always has its door open,'' he said, adding that dates were being negotiated for a Japan-South Korea summit.

A spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, when asked about the NHK report, said: ''We don't have information about that.''

Abe, who took over as prime minister last week, has supported Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine but has declined to say if he would pay his respects there while in office. An adviser to Abe has said he went to Yasukuni last April, when he was a cabinet minister, but Abe has neither confirmed nor denied that.

''I'd like to continue to pray for those who sacrificed their lives for the nation and to have a feeling of reverence for them,'' Abe reiterated to parliament today.

Government officials have said Japan and its Asian neighbours were trying to find a way out of the diplomatic deadlock due largely to differing views of their wartime past, which has chilled relations and threatened to disrupt vital economic ties.

Abe also referred again to a historic 1995 Japanese government statement in which then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama apologised for suffering Japan caused in Asia with its military aggression in the 1930s and 1940s.

China and Japan have not held a summit since April last year, and the South Korean and Japanese leaders have not met formally since last November.(AGENCIES)

Spain official rapped for parliament video stunt

MADRID, Oct 3: A Spanish official has been disciplined for allowing four pranksters to sneak into parliament and video themselves pretending to steal the prime minister's chair.

Parliament has also contacted state prosecutors about a spoof video posted on the Internet, which showed four hooded figures stealing the chair Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero sits on during debates, it said in a news release yesterday.

''The prime minister's chair is still there,'' the parliament said, adding that it had disciplined one of its own officials for letting in the pranksters, who had been identified..

A group calling itself Four Cats posted the video on the Internet at http://levantetezp.Blogspot.Com. It said the video was its contribution to a global campaign against poverty.(AGENCIES)

Asians seek to break western literary stranglehold

UBUD, INDONESIA, Oct 3: Indonesian author Vira Safitri is only 18, but already has two novels under her belt.

In a world where awareness of eastern culture often stops at Jackie Chan and Zhang Ziyi, a new breed of Asian writer is aiming to turn pages with writing inspired by distinctly Asian issues: such as the repression of women, the politics of the hijab, political dissidence and eastern mythology.

Asked how long it took to write her first novel, ''Secret Admirer'', a giggling Safitri said: ''Four days and three nights.''

''And in another week's time I had a publisher,'' she added.

Her two books, which touch on issues such as romance and child abuse from a teenage perspective, have jointly sold 9,000 copies and she is hoping they will be translated from her native Indonesian to English to get wider coverage.

Safitri is one a growing breed of Asian authors writing in a uniquely eastern idiom who were at a writers' festival in the Balinese resort town of Ubud seeking to make themselves heard above the western literary clamour.

''Around two-third of the world's population lives in Asia while 90 per cent of the world's culture is western. That's a huge anomaly and anomalies have a habit of correcting themselves,'' Hong Kong-based writer Nury Vittachi told Reuters.

''It's already happening. There are literary festivals in Hong Hong, Ubud and Shanghai. Publishers are coming here. At one time there were no literary agents here, but now it's opening up,'' said the shaven-headed author who has written more than 20 books, including a successful series about a Feng Shui detective, C.F Wong.

With literary agents and publishers heading there, not surprisingly the Asian equivalent of the Booker prize is going to be launched this year.(AGENCIES)

Older insomniacs helped by brief behavior therapy

NEW YORK, Oct 3: Older adults who suffer from insomnia may find it easier to drift off to sleep following brief behavioral therapy in which they learn about mechanisms that regulate sleep, factors that influence sleep, and behaviors that promote or interfere with sleep.

Sleep specialists from Pennsylvania found that 12 of 17 elderly insomniacs (17 per cent) who participated in a single behavioral therapy session and a booster session slept better and had less anxiety and depression. Nine participants (53 per cent) met criteria for remission of insomnia following treatment.

By contrast, only 7 of 18 insomniacs (39 percent) assigned to an ''information-only'' control group saw improvements in sleep and reductions in anxiety and depression and just three (17 per cent) met criteria for remission of their insomnia.

Insomnia is a ''chronic and prevalent'' problem in adults older than 65 years, note Dr. Daniel J. Buysse and colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. Hypnotics can help but these medications ''raise safety concerns'' in older adults and standard behavioral therapy is time consuming, with standard programs given over 6 to 8 weeks.

The brief behavioral therapy intervention (BBTI) the Pittsburgh team developed comprises a single, 45-minute educational session with a follow up 30-minute booster session two weeks later.

During the sessions, a trained nurse provides individually tailored advice on getting to sleep and staying asleep. For example, subjects are encouraged not to do to bed until sleepy and not to stay in bed unless asleep and to get up at the same time each day.

''We tried,'' Buysse said, ''to identify the active elements from treatments that have been previously described and kind of boil them down into just the basics so that we could present a treatment to people quickly, give them specific recommendations on how they might change their behavior to improve their sleep and it seems to be promising.''

According to the researchers, the ''BBTI group showed large improvements in overall sleep quality, sleep latency, wake time after sleep onset, and sleep efficiency as well as marked reductions in depression and small changes in anxiety, whereas the information-only control group did not.''

The magnitude of the sleep improvements with BBTI were comparable with those reported for traditional longer behavioral and cognitive-behavioral interventions for insomnia, they also note. (AGENCIES)

Cured lepers still live in "colonies" in China

PANYU, CHINA, Oct 3: The old men hunched over a board game looked like any other pensioners playing chess, until they lifted their heads to welcome medical staff approaching their table.

Scarred by leprosy, some of the men have collapsed noses and others have missing fingers, easily visible as they held up their hands to greet their doctors.

All of the inhabitants at the Panyu leprosy village in southern China have recovered from the potentially debilitating skin disease and are no longer infectious.

But many are badly disfigured and blind and are utterly incapable of rebuilding their lives after being forcibly institutionalised for decades, far away from their families.

Panyu is one of hundreds of ''leprosy villages'' in China, a legacy from the 1950s when very little was known about leprosy, or Hansen's disease.

Mistaken as a very infectious or even incurable disease, those diagnosed with leprosy were exiled to remote villages and forgotten.

Ou Feng was diagnosed with leprosy at the age of 18 and sent to live on Panyu, a tiny island in southern Guangdong province.

Now 78, she is excited to greet visitors, grasping their extended hands and holding them for a long time.

''We have lunch ready for you. Please eat now, we are so happy when you come,'' said Ou.

Until recently leprosy sufferers were shunned due to an incorrect belief their illness was highly infectious. Lepers were turned into outcasts and often sequestered in ''leper colonies''. (AGENCIES)

Viagra may aggravate severe apnea

NEW YORK, Oct 3: Viagra (sildenafil) taken at bedtime may worsen breathing problems in patients with severe obstructive sleep apnea, results of a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggest.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a common problem that occurs when the soft tissues at the back of the throat collapse and close off the airway during sleep, resulting in brief moments in which breathing stops.

Impotence, also known as erectile dysfunction, is highly prevalent in patients with obstructive sleep apnea, note Dr. Suely Roizenblatt, of Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and colleagues. However, sildenafil prolongs the action of nitric oxide, which promotes upper airway congestion.

The researchers therefore examined the effects of a single 50-mg dose of sildenafil on the sleep of 14 men (average age, 53.1 years) with severe obstructive sleep apnea.

The subjects were randomly assigned to receive sildenafil or a placebo (''sugar pill'') before they participated in an all-night sleep study, which included at least 7 hours of recording time). The subjects switched treatments and process was repeated the next night.

Compared with placebo, sildenafil led to a significantly increased desaturation index, the number of episodes of oxygen reduction per hour of recording time (30.3 events per hour versus 18.5 events per hour). There was also a significant increase in the percentage of total sleep time with an oxygen saturation of less than 90 per cent (15.6 per cent versus 7.9 per cent) and a significant increase in the maximal duration of a desaturation event (72.5 s versus 48.1 seconds).

Sleep structure was also altered by sildenafil use, with in increase in stage 2 non-rapid eye movement sleep compared with placebo and a decrease in deep sleep compared with the start of the study and placebo, Dr. Roizenblatt's team reports.

Because of the small sample size, the results should not be extrapolated to all obstructive sleep apnea patients. ''Nevertheless,'' they say, ''sildenafil should be used with caution for treating erectile dysfunction in individuals with a sleep-related breathing disorder.''(AGENCIES)

| home | state | national | business| editorial | advertisement | sports |
| international | weather | mailbag | suggestions | search | subscribe | send mail |