Food crisis a rights issue, Govts cannot be passive: UN envoy

NEW YORK, May 3: A UN envoy on food has demanded the convening of a special session of the Human Rights Council to consider the issue of "massive violation of right to adequate food" because of soaring prices worldwide and sought a range of measures by countries to address the current crisis.

The newly appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter, asserted that such a session would allow the members to "speak with one single voice."

"If we had 100 million persons arrested in a dictatorial regime (or) if we had 100 million persons beaten up by police, of course we would be marching on the streets and we'd be convening special sessions of the Human Rights Council," De Schutter said.

"Every single of these 100 million individuals (who are unable to buy food because of high prices) deserves the same degree of attention from the international community as if the person had been arbitrarily arrested or detained for his or her political opinions."

The Special Rapporteur, who took over the role yesterday from his predecessor Jean Ziegler, added that "governments cannot remain passive in the current crisis," and called for a range of measures to tackle the issue.

He said that States should increase their support to humanitarian agencies and provide cash transfers to the neediest segments of populations in food-insecure countries.

In the longer term, he called for greater financial support for small-scale farmers, action to combat climate change, and the phasing out of "market-distorting" agricultural subsidies. (PTI)

UN mission to visit the Maldives to assess poll process

NEW YORK, May 3: An inter-agency United Nations mission will embark on a six-day visit to the Maldives tomorrow to determine whether the world body should provide assistance to forthcoming elections in the Indian Ocean island chain.

The fact-finding mission, which is being led by the UN Department of Political Affairs, is expected to meet a broad range of people in the Maldives during the visit, which follows a request from the country's government, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters.

The delegation will interact with senior Government officials, political leaders, diplomats, members of civil society, representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other important dignitaries.

Multi-party presidential elections are expected to be held in the Maldives by October this year, with parliamentary polls likely to be held by early next year. (PTI)

Work exposure to weed killers tied to brain cancer

NEW YORK, May 3: Women whose jobs regularly expose them to weed killers may have a higher-than-normal risk of a particular form of brain cancer, results of a US study suggest.

Researchers found that among more than 1,400 US adults with and without brain cancer, there was no overall link between the disease and on-the-job exposure to pesticides or herbicides -- chemicals used to kill plants, usually weeds.

However, a closer look at the data showed that women who had ever been exposed to herbicides at work had a two-fold higher risk of meningioma than women with no such exposure.

Meningiomas are slow-growing tumors that arise in the tissue covering the brain and spinal cord. They are one of the most common forms of brain tumor, and occur most frequently in middle-aged women.

A few studies, but not all, have linked both farming and heavy pesticide exposure to a higher risk of brain cancer.

For the current study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers looked not only at participants' job titles, but also at their estimated exposure to pesticides and herbicides.

They found that women exposed to herbicides had an elevated meningioma risk, and the risk tended to climb as the women's years of exposure increased. There was no link, however, been pesticide or herbicide exposure and brain cancer in men.

Unlike other forms of brain cancer, meningiomas are more common in women than men. The new findings suggest that herbicides might play some role in this risk, according to the investigators, led by Dr. Claudine M. Samanic of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

On the other hand, they write, the results are based on only a small number of women. In all, 33 women with brain cancer, and 71 without cancer, had ever been exposed to herbicides at work.

''Our finding that women exposed to herbicides experienced increased meningioma risk may be a chance finding, and our results should be interpreted cautiously,'' Samanic and her colleagues write.

Of the 17 women with the highest herbicide exposure, most worked in restaurants or grocery stores, and were likely exposed by routinely handling produce contaminated with herbicides, the researchers note.

It's not clear why pesticide exposure was unrelated to brain cancer in men or women. One possibility, the researchers note, is that only certain pesticides are involved in brain cancer risk, and they lacked information on which chemicals their study participants had used on the job.

And again, the researchers point out, only a small number of people had ever been exposed to pesticides at work, and the lack of a link to brain cancer could also be a ''chance'' finding.

(AGENCIES)

Night club drug could ease depression:Scientists

LONDON, May 3: Scientists have unravelled how a horse tranquiliser and hallucinogenic night club drug known as ''Special K'' can ease depression, researchers said.

Ketamine, which can also cause feelings of detachment, could pave the way for new treatments for people suffering from depression, the researchers added.

Their study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, found ketamine restores to normal the orbifrontal cortex, an area of the brain located above the eyes that is overactive in depressed people.

The area is believed to be responsible for feelings of guilt, dread, apprehension and physical reactions such as a racing heart, said Bill Deakin, who led the study.

''The study results have given us a completely novel way of treating depression and a new avenue of understanding depression,'' said Deakin yesterday, a neuroscientist at the University of Manchester.

Depression is a leading cause of suicide and affects about 121 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation.

In their study, Deakin and his team gave intravenous ketamine to 33 healthy male volunteers and took minute-by-minute brain scans to see what was happening as the drug took effect.

Images from the scans showed that the drug -- also used as a battlefield anaesthetic -- worked quickly, Deakin said.

The results were surprising because the researchers had expected that the ketamine would instead affect the part of the brain that controls psychosis, he added.

''There was some activity there but more striking was the switching off of the depression centre,'' Deakin said.

Previous research had shown that ketamine improved symptoms in depressed people after just 24 hours -- far faster than the month it can take for Prozac to kick in -- but until now they did not know exactly how.

The latest findings give researchers a specific target to design new drugs and offer hope for the many people who do not respond to Prozac or other standard medicines, Deakin added.

Prozac was initially introduced by US drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co in 1987 and belongs to a class of compounds called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). It is now off patent and widely available generically as fluoxetine.

''Many people don't respond to treatment,'' he said in a telephone interview. ''This offers a potential way of treating them.''

(AGENCIES)

Gene effect on colon cancer differs by gender

NEW YORK, May 3: Whether variant forms of a gene called EGFR increase or decrease survival with colon cancer depends on whether the patient is male or female, new study findings indicate.

Gender-related differences in colon cancer are recognized, including lower rates among women and gender-related response to treatment, according to the article in the journal Cancer Research. Expression of EGFR has been linked with a worse prognosis, but up until now, it was assumed that variants of the gene had a similar effect in men and women.

The research team at the Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles, headed by Dr. Heinz-Josef Lenz, studied two variant forms of EGFR. One of the variants involved a change at a spot called codon 497 and the other involved a change in an area known as intron 1.

To examine the effects of the variants on survival, the researchers analyzed DNA from 318 patients with advanced colon cancer who had all received similar treatment.

When all 177 men and 141 women were considered, the EGFR variants did not influence survival. However, when men and women were analyzed separately, the variants affected survival differently.

Specifically, in men, the codon 497 variant decreased the usual survival period from 13.7 to 10.3 months. In women, however, the variant increased survival from 14.0 to 16.0 months.

The intron 1 variant also acted differently in men versus women. For the same genetic change, survival rose by 10.3 to 13.1 months in men, while it fell from 17.6 to 14.1 months in women.

As to mechanisms that might explain these differences, Lenz's group believes that it may relate to how the EGFR protein interacts with male and female hormone receptors in the colon.

These findings suggest, Lenz said in a statement, that gene variants ''should be evaluated differently in women and men and that treatment decisions may depend on gender and not only on (genetic) or clinical findings.''

(AGENCIES)

Pneumonia kills more children than AIDS, malaria and measles

NEW YORK, May 3: Pneumonia kills more children than AIDS, malaria and measles put together, a new report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has revealed.

The report released yesterday, calls for vigorous steps to raise the profile of pneumonia pointing out that control of disease among children has been neglected.

Important underlying causes, it said, are poverty, malnutrition and poor household environment, including overcrowding, poor hygiene and smoke.

Chief of UNICEF’s Health Section, Peter Salama said "pneumonia remains a significant problem in many countries but in particular in communities with a high rate of under-five mortality".

"Pneumonia control is, therefore, essential in achieving the Millennium Development Goal Four, which calls for a reduction by two-thirds in the under-five mortality rate by 2015," he added.

WHO, UNICEF and other organisations have proposed a global action plan for pneumonia to increase awareness of the disease and to scale up interventions that have proven to be effective.

The organisations called on countries to develop plans for controlling the killer disease based on their existing child survival strategies and to focus on using vaccines, increasing breastfeeding rates, using zinc supplementation to manage diarrhoea, reducing indoor air pollution and preventing HIV infection. (PTI)

Now, a special diet 'to control fits' in children

LONDON, May 3: Researchers in Britain have developed a special high-fat diet which they claim can control fits in children with epilepsy.

According to them, the "ketogenic" diet alters the body's metabolism by mimicking the effects of starvation and could be used as a substitute for epilepsy medicines, the 'Lancet Neurology' journal reported.

In their study on 145 children aged between two and 16 who had failed to respond to medication, the researchers found the number of seizures fell by a third in those who were on the "ketogenic" diet.

Though the number of seizures in the children on the diet fell to two-thirds of what they had been, but remained unchanged in those who had not yet started the diet. Five kids in the diet group saw a seizure reduction of 90 per cent.

However, the researchers found that there were some side-effects including constipation, vomiting, lack of energy and hunger.

According to study leader Prof Helen Cross of Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, the diet has been around for a long time but fell out of favour because it was thought to be too difficult to stick to. (PTI)

Kicking and screaming, US capital's cabbies meet the meter

WASHINGTON, May 3: Washington's cab drivers are grudgingly succumbing to a new law forcing them to install ordinary meters in their taxis, and foresake a quirky decades-old fare system that left some clients confused.

Taxi drivers battled the city government for months to defend their cherished zone system, in which they charge customers depending on how many geographic sectors they travel through.

But a judge last month upheld Mayor Adrian Fenty's decision to order taxis to install meters. The cabbies now have until May 31 to install the meters and face a USD 1,000 fine if they fail to do so after that.

"Welcome to the 21st century," said Page, a taxi customer in her 40s who like many in this city were unhappy with the unique zone system. "It's a great idea. That's the way it's set up in all major cities."

About 50 taxis were lining up recently to buy the USD 400 metres at a shop in northeast Washington.

"The mayor is destroying 7,000 families," said one driver who refused to give his name, referring to the number of Washington taxis. "I'm really upset."

Cabbies complained that the metres cost the equivalent of three to four days worth of fares.

The change, ordered by Fenty last October, ends a system that divided the city into 23 zones -- a confusing maze for visitors from countries or other US cities used to cabs with meters. Some Washington residents were comfortable with the geographic system.

"I like the zone system because I know what my fare is going to be," said L Bertrand, 24, who works in communications. "I hope they can maybe switch back." (AGENCIES)

Mariah Carey weds actor-rapper Nick Cannon

NEW YORK, May 3: Nick Cannon is cast as Mariah Carey's lover in her new video, but has the superstar diva given the young actor a considerably bigger role in real life?

According to several published reports, Carey, 38, married Cannon, 27, on Wednesday. Neither Carey's publicist nor Cannon's manager returned requests from The Associated Press for comment.

If the pair did indeed wed, it would be a whirlwind romance. Word that the two were seeing each other first surfaced in the past few weeks. Last Saturday, Carey was seen sporting a huge diamond ring on her finger at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of her movie, 'Tennessee', in which she plays a waitress. Cannon was at her side at the party.

Speculation swirled that the couple were engaged. Latina.Com was first to report that the two got married, at Carey's home in the Bahamas. Yesterday's New York Post also had the pair wed. People magazine on its Web site yesterday quoted a clergyman, Bishop Clifford Petty of the National Church of God in the Caribbean, as saying he presided over the wedding.

E-Online quoted a relative of Cannon's as saying that he called his family and confirmed the news.

"He called us and told us all about it. We are happy for him. If that is what he wants, then we are happy for him," Linda Cannon, identified simply as a family member, was quoted telling E.

People reported yesterday that Carey had obtained a marriage license on the island of Eleuthera, in the Bahamas, where she has an estate. (AGENCIES)

UN asks Myanmar to ensure credible May 10 referendum

UNITED NATIONS, May 3: The UN Security Council has asked Myanmar's military Government to ensure that the May 10 referendum on the constitution drafted by the army is credible, allows full participation of all political actors and respect for fundamental political freedoms.

The non binding Council statement, a watered down version of the original draft, was promptly attacked by Myanmar's UN Ambassador Kyaw Tint Swe who shot out off a letter to the Council accusing it of "delving" into its domestic matters.

"We find it highly objectionable," he said, blaming powerful Council members, meaning the United States and Britain, of pressuring it to issue the statement.

The referendum, being held ahead of the multi-party election scheduled for 2010, is a component in the 7-step road map leading to democracy in the country which has been ruled by the army for almost half a century.

The National League for Democracy, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has already rejected the draft as it gives a quarter of seats in Parliament as also control of key ministries to the army. It also gives the army the power to suspend the constitution. Suu Kyi continues to be under house arrest and thus unable to participate in the campaign.

The opposition activists are campaigning for a "No" vote but say their efforts are being thwarted by the military government even though it is under strong international pressure to restore democracy.

The statement read out by Council President Ambassador John Sawers of Britain underlined the need for the government of Myanmar "to establish the conditions and create an atmosphere conducive to an inclusive and credible process, including the full participation of all political actors and respect for fundamental political freedoms."

It also noted the commitment by the Government to ensure that the referendum process will be free and fair. (PTI)

Viral outbreak in China may not peak in two months

NEW YORK, May 3: A fast-spreading viral disease in eastern China, which has claimed the lives of at least 21 children, might not peak for another two months as it thrives in warm weather, the UN warned today.

Reports from China said Enterovirus-71 or EV-71 has infected nearly 3,000 children, most of them under two.

Called hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), it starts with fever and leads to ulcers in mouth, hands and buttocks. It has no connection with the disease with similar name which affects livestock.

Cases started to emerge in early March but the number of people hospitalised has jumped since April 19, World Health Organisation said, and public health experts have predicted the number of cases will not peak until June-July, meaning the outbreak can be brought under control only after that time.

The WHO said Chinese authorities have introduced a series of measures, including enhanced monitoring of drinking water quality, increased training of health-care workers and greater surveillance, to try to control the spread of the outbreak.

There is no vaccine or known cure and the disease takes its own course. In most cases, children recover after about a weak without treatment but in serious cases, brain swelling and paralysis leading to death might occur.

The UN health agency has called for increasing stress on cleanliness as the virus is contagious and spread through direct contact, mucus, saliva and faeces.

The Chinese authorities are keeping the UN agency and health officials in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the province of Taiwan informed of test results, which last week confirmed that EV-71 is the cause of the outbreak, the WHO said. (PTI)

Madeleine McCann's parents cling to hope, a year on

LONDON, May 3: The anguished parents of missing British four-year-old Madeleine McCann insist they have not given up hope, a year after their lives were shattered when she vanished from their Portugal holiday flat.

Far from it: as they prepared for the anniversary this weekend, Gerry and Kate McCann hoped to reinvigorate their high-profile campaign to find their daughter alive.

"I don't feel as if Madeleine is dead," said her 40-year-old mother, insisting the chances of finding Madeleine alive are "as good now, if not better" than immediately after her disappearance.

"I really feel she is out there and we will find her," she added.

Madeleine went missing on May 3, days before her fourth birthday as her parents dined with friends in the Portuguese beach resort of Praia da Luz. Her younger brother and sister were in the room too, but they did not wake.

Despite a number of reported sightings, Madeleine has never been found, while her parents were made formal suspects in the Portuguese police probe last September, triggering their return to Britain.

Much media attention has focused on their suspect status, even if they recently won more than USD one million in compensation from a newspaper that repeatedly alleged they were implicated. Now, a year, on, they want to refocus on finding their daughter.

Gerry McCann, 39, who like his wife is a doctor, said the couple were determined to create something positive from their personal agony by their ongoing campaign to introduce a network to find missing children in Europe.

"We knew the night she was taken that some children are murdered and, of course, that was our worst fear," he told 'Hello' magazine, in a joint interview to mark the anniversary.

But, said his wife: "The chances of her being alive are as good now, if not better, than they were after the first three days of her going missing."

Madeleine's uncle, John McCann, said the family were frustrated by a lack of information from Portugal.

"The investigation is being run by the Portuguese police and we don't know what they are doing because of their secrecy laws," he said, while voicing hope that at least the couple's suspect status could be lifted.

"It's a dreadful thing to have a child abducted and then to be suspected of involvement in it, so to have that cleared up would be a first step," he said.

He, and not Madeleine's parents, would visit Praia da Luz for today's anniversary "to thank the Portuguese people for their help".

There will also be church services on the anniversary in Gerry's home town of Glasgow, in Liverpool and in Rothley, the small town in Leicestershire, central England, where the family live.

The campaign to find Madeleine has become a massive media operation, fuelled by huge interest in Britain and abroad.

Clarence Mitchell, a former BBC reporter who has become the the family's spokesman, said Madeleine's parents were optimistic about the first anniversary.

"Kate and Gerry are buoyant in a sense as they see this as another opportunity to highlight the campaign and their desire for greater change in the wider area (of finding missing children)," he said. (AGENCIES)