‘Urbanisation in Asia-Pacific region also driving poverty’

NEW YORK, Mar 20: The pace of urbanisation in Asia and the Pacific unparalleled by any other region in the world has resulted in growth but has also driven up poverty within cities, the United Nations commission covering the region has said.

The urban population of the Asia-Pacific region has been growing at the fastest rate in the world over the past 15 years, according to the Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific released yesterday by the UN Economic and Social Commission (ESCAP).

"This growth is having a knock-on effect," said Pietro Gennari, chief of ESCAP’s Statistics Division. "We’re seeing more and more people living in slums and also a negative effect on people’s ability to access clean water and sanitation in urban areas."

Two out of every five person in urban areas reside in slums, and countries such as China, Indonesia and the Philippines have all noted a drop in the proportion of the urban population with access to clean water.

The region’s rapid economic growth is putting a considerable burden on the environment, partly as a result of the increase in energy consumption. Asia-Pacific’s carbon emissions surged from 1.9 tons per capita in 1990 to 3.2 tons per capita in 2004.

Gennari observed that if emissions are calculated per unit of gross domestic product, then the Asia-Pacific region has one of the highest carbon dioxide intensities in the world.

The dramatic increase in the number of cars in the area, while contributing to economic growth, has the downside of boosting pollution levels. The Yearbook also notes that although the region boasts some of the highest rate of railway density in the developing world, less than half of the Asia-Pacific countries have a sizeable rail system. (PTI)

Oil prices continue to fall in Asian trade

SINGAPORE, Mar 20: World oil prices continued to fall in Asian trade today, with more volatility expected as investors continue to assess the US economy, dealers said.

In early morning trade, New York's main contract, light sweet crude for May fell 60 cents to USD 101.94 per barrel from its close of USD 102.54 during floor trading in the US yesterday.

The April contract had expired yesterday at USD 104.48 a barrel, after plummeting USD 4.94. The contract had hit a record peak of USD 111.80 on Monday.

London's Brent North Sea crude for May dropped 60 cents to USD 100.12 a barrel, after settling at USD 100.72 yesterday.

The commodities market is in a situation where "investor sentiment is potentially shifting" as they reassess the outlook for the US economy, said David Moore, a commodity strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.

"The market has been extremely volatile over the last week, and it is very difficult to say with any confidence when prices could bottom or turn around," said Moore.

Traders continued to focus on the global credit squeeze amid concerns over the impact it might have on global economic growth and oil demand, and largely overlooked the headline US energy inventory data showing a smaller-than- expected rise in crude supplies.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said crude stocks rose by just 200,000 barrels to 311.8 million barrels in the week ended March 14, about average for this time of the year. Markets were expecting stocks to rise by around 2.3 million barrels. (AGENCIES)

Vitamin B ‘helps men father healthy children’

LONDON, Mar 20: Men are more likely to father healthy children if they eat a diet rich in vitamin B, a new study has revealed.

A team of international researchers has found that regular consumption of green vegetables, fruits and lentils—all containing folic acid—can protect men against producing abnormal sperm and kids with genetic abnormalities.

According to lead researcher Prof Brenda Eskenazi of the University of California, while the importance of maternal diet on reproduction was well known, the study suggested that paternal diet might also be important.

"In previous studies, we and others have shown that paternal reentrant intake may contribute to successful conceptions by improving the quality of the sperm.

"This study is the first to suggest that paternal diet may play a role after conception in the development of healthy offspring," the ‘BBC News’ portal quoted Prof Eskenazi as saying.

The team came to the conclusion after they analysed sperm samples from 89 healthy, non-smoking men, and quizzed them about their intake of zinc, folate, vitamin C, vitamin E and beta carotene.

In their study, the researchers found that men who consumed the most folate—between 722 and 1150 micrograms a day—had 20 to 30 per cent lower levels of several types of aneuploidy than men with low folate intake.

It is estimated that up to four per cent of sperm in a healthy man carry either too many or too few chromosomes—a condition known as aneuploidy which is linked to failure to conceive, miscarriages, and children born with conditions like Down’s syndrome, Turner’s syndrome and Klinefelter’s syndrome.

If the findings were confirmed, the current recommended daily folate intake for men of 400 micrograms might have to be revised upwards for men trying for a baby in order to reduce the risk of chromosomal abnormalities in their children, Prof Eskenazi said.

The results of the study have been published in the ‘Human Reproduction’ journal. (PTI)

Afghan should do more to stop rights violation: UN

NEW YORK, Mar 20: The Afghan Government must do more to bring the perpetrators of human rights violations to justice, a senior United Nations official has said, warning that unless "impunity" is addressed, past crimes will continue to undermine the future of the young democracy.

During nearly three decades of conflict, thousands of Afghan men, women and children were subjected to various human rights abuses, including the right to life and safety, freedom of movement, and access to education and health, the world body said, adding, many of those responsible are yet to be brought to justice.

In 2005, the government adopted an action plan to try to address the abuses of the past, achieve peace with justice and promote national reconciliation. However, during her visit to the strife-torn nation last November, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour expressed disappointment in the lack of progress in implementing commitments made under the plan.

"One often hears the phrase 'action speaks louder than words.' Here in Afghanistan, the lack of action speaks volumes," said Norah Niland, Chief Human Rights Officer with the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), stressing the need to "re-energize" the plan.

She emphasized the need for political commitment and stronger leadership at both national and international levels, noting that unless the issue of "impunity" is addressed, Afghanistan's future will be threatened by its past. "Building an environment that is conducive to respect for human rights is fundamental to a peaceful and democratic society," she stated.

"At a minimum, there needs to be the space for a national dialogue that acknowledges the injustices and suffering that have occurred," she told reporters. "The voices of victims need to be heard."

Niland also cited the need for stronger commitment both political and financial to reduce maternal and infant mortality rates, which threaten the right to life.

In addition, while life is better for some Afghan women and girls, who are now able to go to school, work outside the home, and have access to basic health care, deep-rooted social, economic and political discrimination continues, she said.

"It takes time everywhere to achieve gender equality but the severity of the situation here in Afghanistan demands much stronger commitments and more concerted action than is currently the case," she added. (PTI)

Nepal-based rebels out to disrupt polls: Bhutan Police

THIMPHU, Mar 20: As the Bhutanese wait with eagerness to experience life under a democratic setup, Nepal- based militant groups have stepped up activities to frighten voters and disrupt the Himalayan country's first general election on March 24, police have said.

An explosion near a fuel station in the busy industrial town of Pasakha on March 17 was the latest in a series of bomb blasts across the country this year.

The blast injured one Indian worker and left the people in the area a little more nervous with the approach of election day.

The Royal Bhutan Police (RBP) have said they expected more blasts as the rebels will "attempt to discourage people from participating in the historic parliamentary election".

A number of Nepal-based rebel groups were allegedly trying to create chaos during the general election and to instigate a revolt against the government, a RBP spokesman was quoted as saying by the Kuensel newspaper.

The first act of violence in the country this year was reported on January 20 when four near-simultaneous bombs were detonated in four districts, including one in the capital, in which one woman was injured.

A group calling itself the United Revolutionary Front of Bhutan (URFB) sent e-mail messages claiming responsibility for the blasts.

Soon after, there was an explosion behind the renewal natural resources office in Ghumauney in Samtse district on February 3. The office was used as a polling booth in the December 31, 2007, National Council election and officials resided in the compound.

Another two unexploded bombs were found, along with leaflets from the Nepal-based Communist Party of Bhutan (CPB), which allegedly threatened to disrupt the National Assembly polls.

One man died in Dumla village in Dagana on March 13, when a device he was handling exploded. The bomb had been kept in his house allegedly by an militant of the CPB.

Two explosions destroyed the foundation stub at the base of a 400 KV electric tower in Ahley village in Chukha on March 15. The tower transports hydro-power from the Tala project to India.

Some URFB leaflets were found at the site of the blasts in which the group claimed responsibility for the explosions.

Meanwhile, the Royal Bhutan Army destroyed three camps, established in Bhutanese forests by the CPB, and captured 12 militants along with their weapons and explosives during the past two months.

Other revolutionary organisations that have surfaced in the UNHCR-run refugee camps in Nepal are Bhutan Tiger Force and Bhutan Gorkha Liberation Front.

All these groups are believed to have close links with Maoists in Nepal.

On the other hand, as a security measure, the Bhutan- Assam border will be sealed from 6 pm on March 23 to 6 am on March 25 and the Bhutan-West Bengal border from 8 pm on March 22 to 6 am on March 25. (PTI)

Google Feb search share down globally, up in US

SAN FRANCISCO, Mar 20: Google Inc's share of the global Web search market dipped in February from January, even as its U.S. share rose, Internet financial analysts said on Wednesday, citing market research data.

The data from comScore showed Google's dominance of the worldwide market for Web search dipping to 62.8 percent in February from 63.1 percent the month before, according to an analyst, who declined to be named.

Analysts view the monthly comScore search market data as an indicator on growth trends in Web search. Several recent monthly reports have sparked debate on Wall Street over whether the market is maturing, even though year-to-year growth rates remain high.

The volume of U.S. Searches done through Google dropped to 5.86 billion from 6.14 billion in February, and the worldwide volume of searches also declined, comScore said on Wednesday.

''We are continuing to see deceleration in growth in Web search,'' said Jefferies & Co analyst Youssef Squali. ''Google's month-over-month 5 percent decline is a little surprising, but all of the major Web search names were down.''

The drop was partly due to February being two days shorter than January, a comScore spokesman said. However, several analysts said it may also reflect a maturing market. By contrast, searches rose 9 percent in January over December.

Amid a steep decline in the broader market, Google shares closed off $7.16, or 1.6 percent, to $432, while Yahoo Inc fell 59 cents, or 2.1 percent to $27.07. The Nasdaq Composite index .IXIC> slid 2.6 percent.

Investors cull comScore's monthly search data for clues to growth trends in Google's core business of online advertising tied to such Web searches, and to watch if any rivals slow the Google juggernaut. ComScore released summary data on U.S. Search market trends, but worldwide data is only available to paid subscribers.

With search statistics becoming more unpredictable month to month, investors have begun to focus on how well Google is converting Web searches into ad viewership.

Data on growth in ''paid clicks,'' or the number of Web search ads viewed in February, are expected to be released by comScore to clients later this week or early next week.

According to comScore data, Google's U.S. Share among the top five Web search providers grew to 59.2 percent in February from 58.5 percent in January. Yahoo Inc's U.S. Share dipped to 21.6 percent from 22.2 percent.

Microsoft Corp, rated No. 3 in U.S. Web search, slipped to a 9.6 percent share in February from 9.8 percent in January. No. 4 AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc, and No. 5 Ask.Com, a unit of IAC InterActiveCorp, held steady at 4.9 percent each.

Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney, in a research note, blamed Google's decelerating growth in recent months on the maturing computer-based Web search market.

''Google's U.S. Query growth of 26 percent marked a deceleration versus 37 percent growth in January and 40 percent growth in Q4,'' Mahaney said.

ComScore, which tracks online audiences in 20 major Internet markets around the world, estimated Web surfers performed 66 billion searches overall in December, 71.9 billion in January and 67.4 billion in February.

Google's 62.8 percent market share of the worldwide market compared with 58.5 percent in February 2007, according to a reading of comScore data by the unidentified analyst. Similarly, Yahoo's global share dropped to 11.9 percent from 12.2 percent in February from January.

Chinese Internet search leader Baidu.Com Inc slipped to 4.5 percent in February globally from 4.6 percent in January, while Microsoft's share was steady at 3.1 percent, the analyst said, citing comScore data.

(AGENCIES)

Australian Govt pushes to stop early Aboriginal deaths

CANBERRA, Mar 20: Six weeks after making an historic apology to Aborigines for years of mistreatment, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today promised to stop Aborigines from dying younger than white Australians.

Aborigines die an average 17 years younger than other Australians, while the rate of aboriginal infants dying before their first birthday was double that of non-indigenous children.

Rudd said the statistics were unacceptable, and he signed a pledge to improve health services for remote indigenous communities and close the life-expectancy gap within 30 years.

''We want to get to this end point which is to close the obscene gap of life expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, to close the obscenity of the gap between indigenous children under the age of 5 and non-indigenous children,'' he said.

Australia has about 460,000 indigenous Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, who make up about 2 per cent of the 21 million population.

Aborigines are the most disadvantaged group in Australia, with many living in remote outback communities with little access to government services, where they suffer higher rates of alcohol and drug abuse, unemployment, imprisonment and domestic violence.

Rudd ushered in a new era in race relations in February when he apologised for past injustices against Aborigines, including old assimilation policies under which aboriginal children were taken from their homes to live in institutions and white households.

He told an indigenous health conference on Thursday that the Government would boost funding to encourage more Aborigines to become doctors and nurses, and would spend 13.2 million dollars to try to crack down on smoking by Aborigines.

Aborigines are twice as likely to smoke as non-indigenous Australians, and smoking directly contributes to the death of one in five indigenous people.

''Plainly, tackling smoking is critical to closing the gap in indigenous life expectancy,'' Rudd said.

In the Northern Territory, where the Government has sent police and troops to curb alcohol-fuelled violence in indigenous communities, the infant mortality rate was three to four times higher than the national rate.

(AGENCIES)

Pregnancy makes women smarter, brainier

SYDNEY, Mar 20: Motherhood is certainly the most beautiful gift for women, and now good news is that it also makes them smarter and intelligent.

New research by US scientists suggests pregnancy sparks changes in the brain that make women quicker and smarter for decades after giving birth. After conducting the study on rats, they came to the conclusion that women with children are more visually aware and responsive compared with those without children.

There is a ''reservoir of hormones'' released in pregnancy and giving birth that create permanent changes in the brain , researchers said.

''The flow of estrogen promotes neuron growth and enhances the plasticity of the brain, as a result mothers in our animal models have better vision, coordination and memory, stronger survival instincts and go about their tasks more efficiently than non-mothers, '' said researcher Craig Kinsley, a neuroscientist at the University of Richmond.

The research suggests that the benefits of such findings are lasting in women.

''The changes in the brain that control cognition and fear responses actually last into old age, in human terms, the effects would last until a woman was in her eighties,'' the Courier Mail quoted Prof Kinsley as saying.

He said the research was basic science but it could be applied to develop new therapies for hormone-related conditions and menopause, currently best treated with controversial hormone replacement therapy (HRT).

''If we can mimic the process that is happening in mothers' brains then we could use it therapeutically for older women going through hormonal adjustment as a better form of HRT,'' he said.

It could even be used to improve cognitive function with nerve regeneration in diseases like Huntington's and Alzheimer's. (UNI)

Severe lupus may respond to drug combo

NEW YORK, Mar 20: People with severe lupus that doesn't get better with conventional treatment may be helped with a combination of two potent drugs, Swedish researchers report.

The two drugs are rituximab, known as Rituxan or MabThera, which targets the B cells of the immune system, and cyclophosphamide, a strong immune suppressant drug.

Lupus, technically known as systemic lupus erythematosus or SLE, is an autoimmune disorder that can damage the joints, kidneys, heart, lungs, brain and blood. It is marked sometimes by a characteristic butterfly-shaped rash on the face.

Dr Ronald F. Van Vollenhoven and colleagues at Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm note in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases that B cell depleting therapy with rituxan has ''shown encouraging results in patients with SLE.''

They studied 16 female patients who had not responded to conventional immunosuppressive therapy and were given weekly infusions of rituximab for 4 weeks. The first and last infusion was combined with cyclophosphamide and a steroid.

After 6 months, there was a significant decrease in a standard measure of SLE severity, and all but three patients showed at least a 50 per cent improvement in disease severity.

Furthermore, the disease went into remission in nine of the patients.

The investigators stress that the results should not be generalized to all SLE patients, but conclude that ''for patients with severe SLE who have failed to respond to conventional treatment, the combination of rituximab and cyclophosphamide can provide a new therapeutic alternative.'' (AGENCIES)

Semen collection at home OK for analysis

NEW YORK, Mar 20: For men undergoing a fertility check-up, a semen specimen obtained at home rather than in the clinic is adequate for analysis. The results are the same for either collection location, according to a report in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility.

Many men find a medical office less than ideal for producing a semen specimen, but they're often told the location is necessary.

''I think traditionally a lot of urologists felt that office collection was more accurate because the specimen could immediately be sent to the lab, but our study revealed that this is not the case,'' Dr. Rashmi Shetty Licht told Reuters Health.

To investigate the issue, Licht, from Brown Medical School, Providence, Rhode Island, and colleagues analyzed semen from 267 men, each of whom provided samples collected both at home and in the office.

Just over two-thirds of samples collected at home were analyzed within 1 hour of collection, the researchers report, compared with almost all of the samples collected in the office.

There were no significant differences in sperm count, sperm motility, or sperm structure between the samples collected at home and in the office, the results showed.

''Most men would choose to collect at home, and the good news is that they can safely without affecting the results,'' Licht said. (AGENCIES)

Rich nations must help Bangladesh to tackle price rise: UN official

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 20: Bangladesh needs more support from the international community, including oil-rich countries, to cope with the sharp global rise in prices for food and energy, the head of the United Nations Development Agency (UNDP) has said.

The real issue is protecting the vulnerable from these shocks, UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis, who just completed a three-day visit to the South Asian country, said yesterday.

UNDP said roughly 40 per cent of Bangladeshis live below the poverty line and poor households spend nearly 70 per cent of their income on food items, the cost of which rose 16 per cent in 2007, with the price of staples such as rice and oil climbing even sharper.

In addition to the global spike in prices, the situation in Bangladesh was exacerbated by two devastating floods and Cyclone Sidr, which decimated crops last year, UNDP said.

Another factor that made assistance to Bangladesh crucial was the political climate, Mr Dervis maintained. It is determined to build stronger democratic institutions and deeper practices of democracy, he said.

A successful democratic Bangladesh that can overcome political and economic difficulties is an example to other lower income countries, to the Muslim world, and many other countries facing similar problems, he added.

(UNI)

Excess worrying 'can harm' parent-adult child relationship

NEW YORK, Mar 20: Parents, please note -- concern for your grownup child may solidify your bond with your adult kid but too much fretting can harm the relationship.

Researchers in the United States have carried out a study and found that the amount of worry shared by parents and their grownup children can feel either like a warm comforter or wet blanket.

"If someone knows you worry about them, they may see it as an expression of love and caring, but at the same time they can feel irritated and annoyed by it.

"They (grownup children) feel like you (parents) are undermining their autonomy, and maintaining autonomy is important in parent-adult child ties," according to lead researcher Prof Elizabeth Hay of the University of Florida.

The researchers reached the conclusion after surveying 213 adult children -- 110 daughters and 103 sons -- all aged between 22 and 49 and each of their parents, whose ages ranged from 40 to 84. The participants were interviewed from fall 2002 through fall 2003.

Seventy per cent of the adult children said their parents' health was their biggest worry, while their mothers and fathers expressed a wide range of worries relating to their adult children.

"Very few adults or their parents said they didn't worry about each other. Almost everyone could identify a major worry that they could clearly explain, and they reported thinking about it somewhat to a lot of the time.

"The interesting thing is that many of the children in our study were in their 20s and their parents were not of advanced age or experiencing any health problems," Prof Hay was quoted by the 'ScienceDaily' as saying.

The study found that daughters fretted slightly more about their mothers than fathers, while sons worried equally about both parents. "There were no differences in how much mothers and fathers worried about their daughters and sons," she said. (PTI)

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