Friday, September 8, 2006

From September 3 to 8, experts gathered at the 10th International Congress on Obesity in Sydney, Australia, to discuss what they call the worldwide “obesity epidemic”. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 1 billion people in the world today are overweight, and 300 million of those are obese. “Obesity and overweight pose a major risk for serious diet-related chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke, and certain forms of cancer“, a WHO fact sheet states. According to AP, experts at the conference “have warned that obesity is a bigger threat than AIDS or bird flu, and will easily overwhelm the world’s health care systems if urgent action is not taken”.

Of particular concern is the large number of overweight children. Dr. Stephan Rossner from Sweden’s Karolinska University Hospital, a leading obesity expert who was present at the conference, has warned that as a result of the increasing number of overweight children, “we will have, within a decade or two, a number of young people who are on kidney dialysis. There will not be organs for everybody”. UK-based International Obesity Task Force has said that junk food manufacturers target children, for example, through Internet advertising, chat rooms, text messages, and “advergames” on websites. Politicians are not doing enough to address the problem of obesity, including childhood obesity, the experts said.

According to Wikipedia, examples of junk food include, but are not limited to: hamburgers, pizza, candy, soda, and salty foods like potato chips and french fries. A well-known piece of junk food is the Big Mac. The US version of just one Big Mac burger contains 48% of calories from fat, 47% US Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of fat, 52% RDA of saturated fat, 26% RDA of cholesterol, 42% RDA of sodium, and little nutritional value. It also has 18% of calories from protein. According to WHO, most people need only about 5% calories from protein. Staples such as rice, corn, baked potatoes, pinto beans, as well as fruits and vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, oranges, and strawberries, provide more than this required amount of protein without the unhealthy amounts of fats or sodium, without cholesterol, and with plenty of fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

Both WHO and the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) define overweight in adults as a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 25 or above, and obese as a BMI of 30 or above. To combat overweight and obesity, WHO recommends that, among other things, people should be taking the following steps

• eating more fruit and vegetables, as well as nuts and whole grains;
• engaging in daily moderate physical activity for at least 30 minutes;
• cutting the amount of fatty, sugary foods in the diet;
• moving from saturated animal-based fats to unsaturated vegetable-oil based fats.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

SÃO PAULO, Brazil – The Landless Workers Movement (MST) inaugurated on Sunday the school Florestan Fernandes created by the movement. The school is located at the city of Guararema, 60Km (37.282 miles) from São Paulo and is about 30,000 m 2 {\displaystyle m^{2}} . Its estimated cost was about US$ 1,3 million, the money coming from the European Union, NGOs from France and Germany and the MST’s own finances.

The inauguration was attended by the Brazilian Minister of the Agrarian Development Miguel Rosseto, Venezuelan Education and Culture Ministeries delegates, the writer Fernando Morais among other international guests.

According to the MST the proposed courses for the school are: professorship and pedagogy (teaching), collective administration expert, general farming, movement leadership, and Human and Social Sciences.

João Pedro Stédile, a leader of the MST said:”This school is for taking the power for the workers. So that the friends transform the scientific knowledge into instrument of liberation and not of exploitation, as they do.”He also said: “Our enemies are the large farmers, the imperialism, the multinationals, the bankers, the capitalist exploitation and the ignorance. Against them we fight.” According to him the school has an ideological function.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Fifteen Italians including police officers, doctors and prison guards were found guilty of abusing and beating protesters at the G8‘s 27th summit in Genoa in 2001. A judge handed down jail terms between five months’ and five years’ imprisonment. The charges include abuse, fraud, criminal coercion and inhuman and degrading treatment. Another thirty defendants were cleared of charges, including assault.

In June last year former deputy police chief of Genoa, Michelangelo Fournier, belatedly admitted in court that police had “butchered” protesters. In a graphic description of the violence he said he had kept quiet until then “out of shame and a spirit of comradeship”.

The heaviest sentence was five years for Biagio Gugliotta in the penitentiary police department, the commander on duty at the camp at Bolzaneto. Twelve other police officers, eight men and four women, received jail terms of five to 28 months. Doctors Giacomo Toccafondi and Aldo Amenta were given 14 months and 10 months respectively. Dr. Toccafondi was accused of insulting detainees and failing to inform authorities after they were sprayed with asphyxiating gas in cells. The judges issued their verdicts after 11 hours of closed-doors deliberations.

All those convicted are expected to appeal and none will go to prison until the appeals process is complete, which normally takes years. The sentences totalled less than a third of 76 years what had been demanded by the prosecution. The BBC‘s David Willey in Rome says it is unlikely that any of those sentenced will actually serve time in prison because their offences will have expired under Italy’s statute of limitations before the appeal process is completed. It is expected the Italian government will be forced to pay out millions of pounds to those who were victims of police brutality during their detention.

Police were accused of organised and premeditated brutality at the Diaz High School which protesters were using as a dormitory during the summit. In another ongoing trial, 28 defendants, including some of Italy’s most senior police officers, face charges related to the raid on the school. The raid left seventy-three protesters injured with three in comas. A judge ruled that there was no evidence to show any of those demonstrators had been involved in the violence in Genoa.

More than 250 of those arrested were taken to a holding camp that had been created at Bolzaneto, six miles from Genoa. The detainees at Bolzaneto included about 40 who were arrested in a raid on the Diaz school. During the trial the court heard how the holding centre had been the scene for “episodes of torture that violated human dignity.” One of the prosecutors in the case, Patrizia Petruziello, said that 40 protesters who were arrested suffered “four out of five” of the European Court’s criteria for “inhuman and degrading treatment”.

Of the 252 demonstrators who claimed abuse, strong evidence emerged in at least 209 cases considered during the trial. Demonstrators said they were strip-searched, spat at, insulted, verbally and physically humiliated, beaten and sprayed with asphyxiating gas. Some were threatened with rape and sodomy. They were denied food, phone calls or access to consulates while detained. While being held they were forced to sing songs in praise of Italy’s late fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini and other antisemitic songs about Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, which which included the line “Death to the Jews.” The prosecution claimed that this was torture.

The 2001 summit in the northern Italian city was one of the most violent in the history of the G8. Between 100,000 and 200,000 demonstrators took part in anti-globalisation protests. A 23-year-old Italian demonstrator Carlo Giuliani was shot dead by a conscript Carabiniere and hundreds more injured as two days of riots erupted at the summit in the city of Genoa that was hosted by Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi. In December 2007, 24 demonstrators were found guilty of damage to property and looting. They were given sentences ranging from five months to 11 years.

The trial has lasted nearly three years.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

With this year’s November midterm elections fast approaching, three prominent United States Democrats announced their plans for retirement from public service on Wednesday.

Powerful and influential—yet controversial for his alleged close ties to the financial sector and his handling of last year’s bailout—Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut announced that he would not be seeking a sixth term this year.

In a speech to his supporters in East Haddam, Connecticut, the sixty-five-year-old senior senator—with his family at his side—said, “I have been a Connecticut senator for thirty years. I’m very proud of the job I’ve done and the results delivered. But none of us is irreplaceable. None of us is indispensable.”

He then went on to say, “Over the past twelve months, I’ve managed four major pieces of legislation through the United States Congress, served as chair and acting chair of two major Senate committees, placing me at the center of the two most important issues of our time—health care and reform of financial services.”

In addition to highlighting some personal travails, Dodd alluded to his precarious political situation, “I lost a beloved sister in July, and in August, Ted Kennedy. I battled cancer over the summer, and in the midst of all of this, found myself in the toughest political shape of my career.”

Despite this, Dodd adamantly maintained that none of the above reasons were the causes for his retirement. He said that his reasons were more “personal,” and that his retirement would hopefully give him a much-wanted opportunity to spend more time with his family.

Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota announced that he would not run for re-election this year either.

“Although I still have a passion for public service and enjoy my work in the Senate, I have other interests and I have other things I would like to pursue outside of public life,” said the sixty-seven-year-old, three-term senator who said he came to this decision after discussing his future with his immediate family over Christmas.

Governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter announced that he too would not seek a second term. The fifty-three-year-old freshman governor said that although he felt his race was “absolutely winnable,” after some deep “soul searching,” he realized that he truly wanted to retire from politics nonetheless. This due to the fact that he felt his main priority should be to be a better husband to his wife as well as a better father to their four children.

When asked to comment on Senator Dodd’s retirement on behalf of the Administration, Vice President Joseph Biden said Dodd would “be long recognized as one of the most significant senators of my generation.”

He furthermore stated, “I believe the nation will miss his wisdom, wit and compassion. I count myself lucky because I know he’s not going too far and will always be a source of advice and counsel.”

Biden gave similar comments and expressed like sentiments about the retirement of his other two Democratic colleagues as well.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Sri Lanka government forces repulsed an overnight offensive by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the northern Jaffna peninsula in some of the fiercest fighting since the 2002 truce.

The LTTE attempted an amphibious attack arriving in a flotilla of gunboats. Government troops drove them off, supported by artillery and aerial bombing.

According to a military spokesperson, Major Rajapakse, the army killed at least 98 Tamil Tigers and wounded twice as many. The army suffered 6 killed and 60 wounded.

“The situation has calmed down now after heavy fighting till early this morning,” Rajapakse said.

The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka is an ongoing conflict between the Government of Sri Lanka and the ethnic Sri Lankan Tamils on the island-nation of Sri Lanka. Since the 1983 “Black July” pogrom, there has been on-and-off civil war, mostly between the government and the LTTE who want to create an independent state of called Tamil Eelam in the north and east of the island. It is estimated that the war has left 65,000 people dead since 1983 and caused great harm to the population and economy of the country. A cease-fire was declared in 2002, but hostilities renewed in late 2005 following military operations against Tiger-controlled territory in the east.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

These are short blurbs about current events in the business world.

Wednesday, November 8, 2006

As of 10:00 p.m EST November 8, 2006, the Democratic Party is projected to have gained control of both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate in the 2006 United States general elections. MSNBC projects that the Democrats now control 234 seats in the House of Representatives, 16 more seats than the 218 needed to control the House of Representatives as all 435 seats were up for election. In the Senate, where the balance of power is closer, one-third of all seats were up for grab. As of 10:00 p.m. EST, AP and Reuters were projecting that the Democrats had picked up all six seats they needed to retake the Senate, including the seats of incumbents Rick Santorum (Penn.), Lincoln Chafee (R.I.), Jim Talent (Missouri), Mike DeWine (Ohio), John Tester (Montana), and Jim Webb (VA). The Tester victory by less than 3,000 votes was projected at approximately 2 p.m. EST after the State of Montana announced the results of overnight recounts. Democrat Jim Webb has prevailed in that race by slightly more than 7,000 votes, though his opponent has not conceded and a recount may still occur.