Atrocities on women not acceptable: Ban

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 26: Coming down heavily on violence against women, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has mooted a global effort to end the scourge which is "never acceptable, never excusable, never tolerable."

Ban was speaking at the inauguration of a multi-year global campaign yesterday to end violence against women, which he said is impeding achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) seeking to drastically reduce or eliminate several social and economic ills by 2015.

"This is a campaign for them. It is a campaign for the women and girls who have the right to live free of violence, today and in the future," he said, adding, "It is a campaign to stop the untold cost that violence against women inflicts on all humankind."

"Violence against women impedes economic and social growth, and thus the new campaign will run until 2015, the target year to achieve MGDs," he said.

Ban acknowledged that there is no "blanket approach" to tackle the scourge, noting that each country must formulate its own measures to address violence against women.

"But there is one universal truth, applicable to all countries, cultures and communities: violence against women is never acceptable, never excusable, never tolerable," the Secretary-General stated, adding that he hopes to hold a high-level event in 2010 to review progress.

Rachel N Mayanja, Secretary-General's Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, said while everybody professes that women's contributions are critical to development to everything it hasn't been demonstrated "concretely."

"And here we are, halfway through the Millennium Development Goals projected period, and we are still lagging behind," Mayanja said.

Many women have been left out of development efforts because of the violence that is continually being inflicted on them, she said, adding this new campaign will bring a new sense of urgency to bear on this tragic issue.

During the discussions, several speakers, including Prateek Suman Awasthi who works with India-based Men Against Violence and Abuse organisation, stressed that it is more of a structural than a social problem. The violence results when women seek their rights which have been suppressed for long.

Speaking on behalf of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)'s youth advisory, Awasthi said that it was often a tool used to keep women subjugated in societies.

"Achieving development goals, such as universal access to health care, would remain elusive as long as women continued to be raped and abused, sometimes sexually, which, in turn, increased transmission of HIV/AIDS," he said.

The panel also emphasised the need for working with young persons who constituted a substantial percentage in the developing nations and treating it as human rights issue rather than social problem.

The empowerment of women, the speakers said, is necessary and some suggested encouraging them to learn martial arts to enable them to defend themselves. (PTI)

Bird flu in poultry reported in south west China

BEIJING, Feb 26: China has reported another case of bird flu in poultry in the mountainous south western Guizhou province making it the fourth case of the disease in poultry this year.

Highly pathogenic H5N1 subtype of the avian influenza virus had caused the outbreak which killed 3,993 birds, the Ministry of Agriculture said.

The disease had been brought under "effective control" after 238,364 birds were culled, official Xinhua news agency said quoting the ministry.

This is the fourth bird flu outbreak in poultry with two reported earlier in southwestern Tibet Autonomous Region and one in northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

China with the world's biggest poultry population is fighting a multi-pronged battle against the virus.

A 44-year old woman had yesterday died of H5N1 strain of bird flu in south China's Guangdong province in the third human fatality due to the disease in a month.

China has confirmed 30 cases of human bird flu since 2003, 20 of them fatal. (PTI)

UK set to announce casino plans:Sources

LONDON, Feb 26: The British Government is set to formally lay out plans on Tuesday for 16 large casinos across the country, including a requirement that the gambling industry make a multi-million pound charity payment, political and industry sources said.

Sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe will make an announcement in parliament, a political source said, while an industry source said the government would give details on the set-up of new casinos, including the number of slot machines and gaming tables to be allowed.

Sutcliffe will tell the gambling industry it needs to ensure 4 million pounds ($7.9 million) a year is paid to RIGT, The Responsibility in Gambling Trust, or the government will look to introduce some form of mandatory payment, a source said.

Currently, only about 10 percent of Britain's 3,800 licensed gambling operators, including bookmakers, bingo halls and online gaming companies, pay money to RIGT, an independent trust given voluntary funding by the gambling industry to research and limit problem gambling.

Sutcliffe's announcement should also end talk about a so-called supercasino, which had been set to be built in Manchester, northern England, before plans were effectively shelved by Gordon Brown last July, shortly after he became Prime Minister.

Brown said there should be better ways to regenerate the area and launched a review of casino policy, which will result in Tuesday's statement.

Manchester had won a competition to host a Las Vegas-style casino as part of plans under former Prime Minister Tony Blair for more casinos to help regenerate deprived neighbourhoods.

But politicians, led by church leaders in the House of Lords, Britain's upper chamber, rejected the plan for Manchester following months of lobbying by campaigners against gambling addiction.

(AGENCIES)

China circus lion rips of 10-year-old boy's arm

BEIJING, Feb 26: A Chinese circus lion ripped a 10-year-old boy's arm off after grabbing him through the bars of its cage, local media reported today.

The accident happened on Saturday at a park in Mengcheng county in the eastern province of Anhui, the Shanghai Daiy said.

''Park workers managed to pull the boy away, but his left arm had been torn away by the animal,'' the paper said.

The boy was rushed to hospital and underwent surgery, the paper said, without giving details of his condition.

Police said the space between the bars of the cage was too wide.

Patchy adherence to safety standards and lax supervision have led to a number of children being killed or harmed by animals at Chinese zoos in recent years.

Sixteen government officials were sacked for negligence after a nine-year-old boy was eaten alive at a crocodile enclosure in the southern region of Guangxi in April.

Last February, a tiger attacked a six-year-old girl waiting to have her picture taken with the animal at a zoo in southwestern Yunnan province, biting her head and killing her. (AGENCIES)

One NY commods trader sees the good life after pit

NEW YORK, Feb 26: After Chris Scheid graduated from Queens' Richmond Hill high school in 1982, he landed a lowly job in Manhattan as a futures exchange floor runner thanks to the brother of his Boy Scout troop den mother.

''Ninety-eight percent of the people on the floor got their job because they knew somebody,'' he told Reuters after a day of trading in the frozen concentrated orange juice market. ''I started at the bottom.''

Scheid, 43, learned the ropes and struck it big trading agricultural commodities like frozen concentrated orange juice, coffee, sugar, cocoa and cotton. But now, after 2-1/2 decades of yelling orders and flapping hands to buy and sell futures, he must change careers when more than a century of agricultural commodities futures trading in New York ends on March 3.

The IntercontinentalExchange's ICE Futures US, which bought the NYBOT last year, will cease open outcry trading of all futures contracts and become wholly electronic.

Scheid will keep his hand in the market by trading orange juice options -- the FCOJ options ring is not closing. He is investing in a southern cooking-themed restaurant and an auction company. There is also a thriving antique business.

Hoarse from years of barking at each other, dozens of traders and brokers from New York City, Long Island, and New Jersey are assessing their skills. It will be tough to find a job that matches floor trading for its combination of great pay and a big adrenaline rush.

INTO THE PIT

Scheid's story of a young man with a working class background carving out a career without the benefit of college is hardly unique on commodity exchanges in New York, Chicago or London.

College was not an option for Scheid, whose father worked for the New York utility Con Edison while his mother stayed home to take care of him and two other sisters.

''Most of my friends got city jobs,'' he said, listing bus drivers, police officers and court officers. ''That's what I would have done.''

His floor runner job started at 125 dollar a week. A few months later, he was promoted to clerk and his paycheck got a little fatter -- 200 dollar a week.

''At one time, I was doing everything,'' Scheid reminisced about trading things like heating oil before his boss decided to station him near the FCOJ pit.

After working as a commodity broker in the mid-1980s, Scheid bought a seat on the exchange. His boss ''semi-retired and he gave me the business,'' Scheid said, adding with a mischievous smile that he gave the guy an ''offer he couldn't refuse.''

The orange juice market is small, nothing like the teeming, frantic floor scene made famous by comedians Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroid in the 1983 movie Trading Places.

The exchange provided price transparency and a venue for orange growers and commercial processors like Tropicana to hedge risk. By making bets with each other and offering prices to hedgers, traders and brokers provided liquidity.

They also cracked each other up with practical jokes when things were quiet, as they often were in the summer.

Scheid is not worried because he is in good financial shape. He had sold the shares the exchange gave him and cleared a couple of million dollars to invest in other ventures.

But he said traders who do not own seats in the old New York Board of Trade and have not yet made enough to retire are out of luck when the pit closes. Some will ply their trade from home and others will do something else -- like race cars or fly planes for a hobby.

''It's kinda sad'' the pit is closing, Scheid mused. ''I've been on the floor 25 years. We gave our customers good service and they're losing liquidity.''

(AGENCIES)

One-legged exercise may help COPD patients get fit

NEW YORK, Feb 26: Exercising one leg at a time can improve aerobic capacity more than two-legged exercise in patients who have stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to a report in the latest issue of the medical journal Chest.

''We may have a new approach to enable patients with severe lung disease to improve their fitness,'' Dr. Roger S. Goldstein told Reuters Health. ''Hopefully this also increases their mobility, activities, and quality of life.''

COPD is a common, progressive lung condition that is mostly seen in smokers and former smokers. It is characterized by emphysema and chronic bronchitis, which obstructs air flow to the lungs. COPD is the 4th leading cause of death in the United States.

Goldstein from the University of Toronto, Ontario, and Thomas E Dolmage note that shortness of breath limits exercise intensity for most COPD patients. ''One-legged exercise,'' at half the work load of exercise using two legs, ''places the same metabolic demands on the targeted muscles.'' However the stress on the lungs is reduced, permitting patients to increase their exercise capacity, the researchers point out.

They investigated the effects of one-legged training on the peak oxygen uptake on 18 COPD patients during stationary bicycle exercise compared with conventional two-legged training. ''Two-legged trainers cycled continuously for 30 minutes, whereas one-legged trainers switched legs after 15 minutes.'' The conditions were otherwise the same in terms of training frequency and session duration.

Both groups were able to increase their training intensity over the duration of the training programme, the investigators report, and both groups significantly increased their total work per session.

The researchers found that the improvement in peak oxygen uptake was significantly higher in the one-legged training group than in the two-legged group. The one-legged group also had a significantly greater increase in peak ventilation and lower submaximal heart rate than the two-legged group.

''Although the one-legged group exercised at a higher muscle-specific intensity,'' the investigators write in their report, ''their overall exercise intensity remained below that of the two-legged group.''

''This approach enables patients who would otherwise be too short of breath to exercise to train at a lower work load (one that would allow them to continue exercising for longer) by using one leg at a time -- in other words, by using a lower muscle mass,'' Goldstein explained.

The technique is ''easy to do, inexpensive, and it's simple to modify a stationary bike,'' Goldstein pointed out. The best candidates for this program are patients with severe but stable lung disease who would otherwise be too short of breath after minimal exertion to participate in any meaningful exercise.

''Single-leg exercise has been used to study physiologic mechanisms for more than 30 years,'' writes Dr M Jeffery Mador, from the University of New York at Buffalo, in a related editorial. ''The authors are to be commended for translating this type of study into exercise that is potentially adaptable to clinical practice and may benefit patients with COPD.''

Whether this approach is ''ready for prime time'' or just represents an interesting study will require additional trials with a larger number of patients, along with evaluation of actual patient benefits, the editorialist concludes.

Goldstein told Reuters Health that his group does plan to test the method in a larger sample of subjects before recommending it as an exercise training program for COPD patients. (AGENCIES)

US immigration debate snares seasonal businesses

WASHINGTON, Feb 26: John Graham's crab company has held its own for 65 years as the local catch has dwindled and cheap Chinese crabmeat filled the supermarkets. It might not survive the immigration debate in the US Congress.

Graham relies on temporary workers who come from Mexico to pick crabmeat from the shells because he can't find enough employees in Hampton, Virginia. But a program that allowed him to bring back experienced workers quietly expired last year after Congress failed to overhaul broken immigration laws.

Now his business is in trouble. Crab season begins next month, but Graham expects his cavernous picking plant on the Hampton waterfront will sit idle.

''We're going to mop up all these buildings and let them sit here and cave in,'' he said. ''I haven't slept for three weeks.''

Thousands of small businesses across the United States rely on foreign, seasonal workers to shuck oysters, mow lawns, clean hotel rooms and pick crops because there are not enough Americans willing to do such work. The high-tech industry says it needs skilled workers from overseas to write software because there are too few Americans qualified to fill those jobs.

Those business needs have been hung up in a broader national debate over immigration. A Bush administration-backed compromise that would have created a new guest worker programme and given the 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States a chance to become citizens collapsed last year in the face of stiff opposition from some conservatives who said the focus of the debate should be securing the border against undocumented newcomers, not assisting those in the country illegally.

With President George W Bush in his final year in office, most experts believe it will be up to the next president to tackle a major overhaul of US immigration laws. But some say Congress could tinker around the edges to address the urgent needs of US businesses.

''There is the possibility that there will be an effort to move a narrower package,'' said Craig Regelbrugge, who represents an agriculture group that has been pushing for immigration reform.

As a recession looms, many seasonal businesses are scrambling to find workers or making plans to scale back.

The 66,000 slots available under the existing visa programfor temporary seasonal workers are not nearly enough to satisfy the demand and usually are snapped up within a day or two.

In the past, businesses have been able to exceed the cap by bringing back workers they've hired before using what are known as H-2R visas, but that provision of the program expired last year.

The Wintergreen Resort in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains faces a shortfall this summer of roughly 40 dishwashers, chambermaids and janitors who will not return from Jamaica. That means one in five of these jobs will go unfilled.

''It's a borderline disaster,'' said Jeff Duncan, Wintergreen's vice president for human resources. ''People are going to notice it when they start going to the resorts and eating in the restaurants -- there's no servers and there's no clean dishes and the beds aren't changed.''

In Hampton, on the Atlantic coast 282 km south of the US capital, Graham expects revenues to plunge this year without the 100 Mexicans who make up the bulk of his workforce. Locals aren't interested in work that's only available for six months out of the year, he says, and competition with cheap crabmeat from East Asia prevents him from increasing wages enough to attract them.

With his factory shuttered, crab fishermen will have no place to sell their catch, he said -- which could spell the end of a centuries-old industry.

''We're talking about coastal heritages and traditions that were founded on the waterfront, that have been in place for generations,'' he said. ''It's dwindling all the time but this will be the nail in the coffin.''

(AGENCIES)

Scientists pinpoint why some people become addicts

LONDON, Feb 26: Scientists have identified the part of the brain that may hold the key to why some cocaine users become addicts while others just take the drug socially, researchers said today.

Brain scans of cocaine users while they performed simple computer tasks showed changes in the part of the brain responsible for controlling behaviour and making appropriate decisions, they said.

This could explain why some people find it easier to quit than others and may shed light on long-term addiction, said Hugh Garavan, a cognitive neuroscientist at Trinity College Dublin who presented his research to a meeting of the Royal Society in London.

''Most people who try to quit drugs relapse,'' Garavan said in a telephone interview. ''It might have to do with how intact these brain regions are.''

Cocaine, initially used in patent medicines, beverages and tonics around the turn of the 20th Century, is a drug that in powdered form can be snorted or dissolved in water and injected. Its derivative crack cocaine is even more powerful.

An estimated 1 to 3 percent of adults in developed countries use the drug, which has been linked to a number of medical, psychological and social problems including crime, violence and the spread of diseases like AIDS and hepatitis, according to the World Health Organisation.

Garavan and colleagues used MRI scans to show that cocaine users had reduced neural activity marked by reduced blood flow to the part of the brain involved in things like problem solving, decision making and controlling behaviour. Some people were administered cocaine in the experiments.

''This research helps us move away from thinking of drug dependence as a moral weakness and allows us to see it as more of a medical condition.''

It was unclear whether the changes were due to the drug itself or whether some kind of natural mechanism in the brain triggers the change, Garavan said.

But better understanding the brain's response to cocaine could eventually help predict people most at risk of developing an addiction and lead to better treatments, he added.

''One would hope this research would guide the development of new treatments including the development of pharmacological solutions to addiction,'' Garavan said.

(AGENCIES)

Political crisis in Kenya should be resolve immediately: UN

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 26: United Nations has said that the political crisis created after the elections in Kenya should be immediately resolved to stop further escalation of violence in that country.

If there is no quick resolution to the political crisis, the risk of a fresh surge in violence, more displacement and further polarization of society will be very high, John Holmes UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs said.

"The humanitarian consequences of this could dwarf anything we have seen so far," he said, noting that some 1,000 people have already lost their lives and more than 300,000 driven from their homes since elections in which President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner over opposition leader Raila Od inga.

Holmes while briefing the Security Council on his visit to the East African country from February 8 to 11, said he made it clear to the Kenyan parties that the full weight of the UN is behind the mediation process, led by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, that was attempting to reconcile the differences over the election results.

To avoid future violent explosions, however, it is also crucial to address decades-long grievances over land, poverty and wide economic inequalities in a context of strong population growth and limited availability of land, he said.

In addition, he added, political manipulation of land and tribal issues would have to be prevented through constitutional and electoral reform, and that there must be accountability for those responsible for the current violence, human rights abuses and failures to protect civilians. (PTI)

Exercise may cut gallstone risk.

NEW YORK, Feb 26: Exercise is good for mice and humans, but appears to be bad for gallstones, according to the findings of a study conducted with mice.

Dr Kenneth R Wilund and colleagues found that the overall gallstone weight was 2.5-fold greater in sedentary mice compared with mice that exercised. The researchers suggest that exercise may provide similar benefit to humans.

''The basic physiology of gallstone formation is pretty similar in humans and mice,'' Wilund said. Many of the proteins involved in the liver's cholesterol and bile acid metabolism are very similar, he said.

''So it is reasonable to suggest that the changes we believe were responsible for the reduction in gallstone formation in the exercise-trained mice could also occur in response to exercise training in humans,'' commented Wilund, of the University of Illinois, Urbana.

He and his colleagues fed 50 gallstone-susceptible mice standard chow that was supplemented to increase gallstone formation. They placed half the mice on a 12-week endurance exercise regimen that involved 45 minutes of running, five days a week. The remaining mice were sedentary for 12 weeks, the investigators report in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

At the end of the study period, the animals were euthanized and the gallstones were removed. The total weight of the gallstones from the sedentary mice was 143 milligrams compared with 57 milligrams for exercising mice, the investigators note.

''In most situations, gallstone formation in humans occurs over a very long period of time -- probably years,'' Wilund said. ''As a result, it would be difficult to do a similar study in humans.''

However, the process of gallstone formation is similar enough between mice and humans to infer that exercise may also limit gallstone formation in humans, he and colleagues note.

''It is well established that chronic exercise reduces the incidence of chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancer,'' Wilund continued. ''This study provides preliminary evidence that perhaps we can add gallbladder disease to this list.''

(AGENCIES)

Scientists discover new way to store information via DNA

NEW YORK, Feb 26: Researchers at the University of California claim to have discovered a new system to encode digital information within DNA.

According to the researchers, this method relies on length of the fragments obtained by the partial restriction digest rather than the actual content of nucleotide sequence, the 'Langmuir' medical journal has reported.

"What we developed is a method to encode a message in DNA in a way that does not require an expensive sequencing machine. The decoding still requires a wet lab procedure, but the experimental procedure is significantly easier," said lead researcher Prof Stefano Lonardi.

But, why is this discovery important? Well, the human genome consists of the equivalent of approximately 750 MB of data -- a significant amount of storage space.

However, only about three per cent of DNA goes into composing the more than 22,000 genes that make us what we are. The remaining 97 per cent leaves room to encode information in a genome, allowing the information to be preserved as well as replicated in perpetuity.

Given the size of the DNA fragments, one could store a large amount of information in a very small space. By storing messages within DNA, organisations can "tag" objects to verify authenticity, as well as to inconspicuously send data to a specific destination, according to the researchers.

"Already there are several companies using DNA to tag objects that they certify to be original and which then can be very difficult to counterfeit," Prof Lonardi wrote in the American Medical Society's journal. (PTI)

Indian herb may help diabetics control blood sugar

NEW YORK, Feb 26: An extract of Coccinia indica, a perennial herb that grows abundantly in India, may help people with mild type 2 diabetes control their blood sugar levels, the results of a new study suggest.

In the journal Diabetes Care, researchers note that while Coccinia indica, also known as Coccinia cordifolia, has been widely used in traditional treatments of diabetes, carefully controlled studies have not been done.

To examine the effects of this herb on blood sugar levels, the India-based researchers randomly assigned 60 adults with newly detected type 2 diabetes to receive Coccinia extract or placebo. The subjects were between 35 and 60 years old and were being treated with diet and lifestyle modification only.

According to Dr Rebecca Kuriyan, from the Institute of Population Health and Clinical Research in Bangalore, and colleagues, there were significant differences in blood sugar favoring Coccinia extract over placebo after 90 days of treatment.

Fasting blood sugar levels at 90 days in people taking the Coccinia extract fell by an impressive 16 percent, while fasting blood sugar levels rose slightly in the placebo takers. Likewise, patients in the Coccinia extract group had an 18-per cent decrease in post-meal blood sugar levels at the study's end, whereas the placebo group experienced a small increase in post-meal blood sugar levels.

This study suggests that Coccinia extract has a potential blood sugar lowering action in patients with mild diabetes. Kuriyan and colleagues note however that additional studies are needed to identify the mechanisms involved.

(AGENCIES)