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US Fritzl’s secret garden of evil where he kept kidnapped girl as sex slave

August 30, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Aug 30 (ANI): A filthy, ramshackle secret garden, hidden inside ‘American Fritzl’ Phillip Garrido’s house in the small town of Antioch, east of San Francisco, has been revealed to be the place where he kept Jaycee Lee Dugard as sex slave for 18 years and fathered two children with her.

Jaycee – kidnapped from a bus stop by Garrido, 58, when she was just 11 -was just 14 when she had the first of his two daughters, now 11 and 15, reports News of the World.

The kidnapped victim had to raise her undercover family amid the makeshift home of sheds and tents, surrounded by rubbish – topped off with a sign bidding Welcome.

The shocking details emerged as Phillip and his wife Nancy were held for trial after denying 29 charges of abduction, imprisonment and rape – and 29-year-old Jaycee was reunited with her shocked family.

Jaycee and her daughters lived destitute in a maze of interlinked shacks and tents hidden from view by overgrown trees, 8ft fencing and tarpaulins.

The entire area is strewn with their sad array of worn and broken toys and possessions, vying for space with piles of the Garridos’ dumped household junk including discarded cans of chemicals.

A source who visited the Walnut Tree Avenue compound said: “Most frightening are the bloodstains which are everywhere on carpets, tent walls and in clothing.

“It’s extremely disturbing trying to fathom out what went on in that dreadful place and how human beings could do such things.”

“How the children didn’t die of diseases or suffer long-term medical problems is a miracle. Their home was a tip with no hygiene at all,” the source added. (ANI)

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Fat people ‘more likely to die of swine flu’

July 16, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 16 (ANI): Here’s some bad news for fat folks: Overweight people are more likely to die of swine flu, says a new US study.

According to unpublished figures, which were reported at a recent meeting of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, 99 people who died in the early stages of the pandemic in the US, 45 per cent were obese.

Up till now, most of the individuals who have died from H1N1 swine flu have had an underlying health problem which weakened their ability to fend off the virus, reports New Scientist.

Among the conditions recognised as increasing the risk from flu are hypertension, diabetes, chronic lung obstruction and coronary disease. Now it may be time to add obesity to the list.

The figures surprised most flu researchers.

“In 40 years of studying flu, I have never heard anything about obesity,” says virologist John Oxford of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of London. (ANI)

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Expert says swine flu child toll will double in next year

July 2, 2009 By admin 1 Comment

Melbourne, July 2 (ANI): A leading expert on swine flu has warned that twice as many children will die of the disease in the next 12 months compared to the number of deaths from regular influenza.

Professor Robert Booy, however, said the number of deaths would still be fairly small – around 10 or 12 in a year.

Three to six children die every year from regular influenza. It (death from swine flu) can occur in a healthy child although most of them we believe will occur in a child with a problem, say a chronic heart problem, long-standing lung, kidney, liver (problems) or diabetes,” Professor Booy told ABC radio.

“The likelihood is with this virus we’ll see more of the small number of severe (cases) than we do normally.”

Yesterday a three-year-old Victorian boy with swine flu died. The family requested the boy’s medical history not be released.

Prof Booy is the co-director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney. (ANI)

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50 percent of Zimbabwe prisoners died of hunger, disease in last 1 year

May 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Harare, May 19 (ANI): At least 700 out of the 1300 inmates in Zimbabwe’s maximum security jail have died of starvation or disease in the last year.
Due to its death rate, Chikurubi prison, located on the outskirts of Harare, has been touted as one of the worst jails in history.

On Sunday alone, six prisoners were found dead in their filthy cell, while the same number died last weekend due to revolting conditions.

Some 100 bodies, many of them mutilated by rats, are stacked up in the prison mortuary. If they are unclaimed, they will be buried as paupers in the prison grounds, The Telegraph reports.

The collapse of Zimbabwe’s economy has crippled the prison system, leaving thousands of inmates with scarcely any food. The provision of medical care has also collapsed, leaving prisoners to die of starvation and disease.

Chikurubi packs about 30 inmates into cells designed for only 10, the paper reported.

A jail warder revealed that the mortality rate in other prisons of the country was almost the same.

“It’s the same at all the rest of the prisons around the country. We often find six died at a time. A lot have AIDS, but die quickly because they don’t have enough food,” he said.

Between November and January, 327 deaths were recorded at Chikurubi – almost a quarter of all the inmates.

The commissioner in charge of jails, Major-General Paradzai Zimondi (a close aide of President Robert Mugabe), is blamed for not doing his job properly.

“He has never been to see what is going on in Chikurubi. He doesn’t care,” the paper quoted the warder, as saying. (ANI)

|Pak Govt. in talks with Taliban for return of Sikhs evicted from Orakzai|World[Kohat{Kohat, May 19 (ANI): The Pakistan Government has started discreet negotiations through religious clerics with the deputy chief of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for the rehabilitation of Sikh families, evicted from Orakzai Agency.

A high placed source said on Monday, that the tribal administration on the directives of the federal government had assigned the task of holding peace talks with the deputy chief of TTP, Hakeemullah Mehsud.

They would make efforts to pave the way for rehabilitation of Sikh families in the area where they had been living for centuries. The source declined to disclose the names of clerics involved in the talks, and said that meetings were going on peacefully.

He said that the displaced Sikh families were willing to come back. After getting orders for payment of Jazia, the Sikhs had already raised Rs12 million and just requested for one more day to collect the amount.

About 35 Sikh families were forced to leave their permanent abodes in Feroze Khel area of Orakzai Agency after Taliban burnt their houses and looted their shops.

Taliban had imposed Jazia (religious tax) on Sikh community for being non-Muslims living in an Islamic state for the protection of their lives and property.

The community failed to raise Rs15 million by April 29 after which their houses were attacked. But they had left the area before the attack, The Dawn reported.

Thirteen Sikh families were still living in Merozai area of lower Orakzai Agency on the land possessed by Shia community where the TTP had no control.

To a question about the collateral damage caused by the shelling and bombardment on militant hideouts in the area, he said that so far dozens of men, women and children had been killed in such attacks. (ANI)

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Malaria vaccine being developed in Delhi

April 24, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

New Delhi, Apr 24 (ANI): Scientists are undertaking research to develop a vaccine for immunization against malaria. The vaccine is expected to reduce the severity of the disease.

The scientists at the international Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in New Delhi are involved in the research on malaria for the past few years.

The scientists at the institute have tested almost 20 vaccines. One of them is showing good results.

The scientists believe the progress of the research of the vaccine depends on the phase one trial. If this goes on well, the scientists expect to develop a partially successful vaccine to reduce the severity of the disease in a few years.

“I think if everything goes well, we may have a partially successful working vaccine in the next five to ten years. If other efforts also go simultaneously and if there are several partially successful vaccines, they can be mixed together to get a much better vaccine. We are in the beginning of the malaria vaccine research,” said Dr. V.S Chauhan, director, ICGEB.

The vaccine for malaria will not work as other vaccines. The centre is developing a vaccine for infants initially. It will boost the immunity of children to fight against the disease.

“In this case, the initial aim would be just to immunize very young children, infants, in the areas where there is a lot of malaria and just boost their immunity artificially a little more. Children will still get malaria, but they will not die of the disease. In other words, the severity of the disease will be hugely reduced. So that they get exposure but they do not die. After two or three exposures, they themselves become immune to malaria infection,” added Dr. Chauhan.

The ICGEB has collaborated with industrial partners and is receiving funds from the government to carry on the research.

The research includes developing a vaccine, which prohibits the entry of the malaria parasite into the red blood cells.

“We are trying to focus on blocking the entry of the parasite into the red blood cells. If we are successful, then the parasite will not enter the red blood cells. Hopefully, it will not let the disease happen. So, we will still get the disease but the severity of the disease will go extremely down. So that way the death rate we are targeting is 0,” said Dr. S. Shams Yazdani, a scientist at the ICGEB laboratory.

Malaria is a vector borne infectious disease caused by a parasite called Plasmodium transmitted by infected mosquitoes. There is yet no completely successful vaccine for malaria. (ANI)

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Two polling officials die of sun stroke in Orissa

April 24, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Bhubaneswar, Apr 23 (ANI): Two polling officials died and two others fell ill due to sun stroke in Orissa’s Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar Districts on Thursday.

According to officials, the heat wave death toll in Orissa has now touched 30.

The deceased were identified as Pabitra Mohan Muduli and Somnath Mohanty.

Meanwhile, the officials who were taken ill were rushed to hospital. They were identified as Rahim Khilar and Dambarudhar Mahanta. (ANI)

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Two polling officials die of sun stroke in Orissa

April 23, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Bhubaneswar, Apr 23 (ANI): Two polling officials died and two others fell ill due to sun stroke in Orissa’s Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar Districts on Thursday.

According to officials, the heat wave death toll in Orissa has now touched 30.

The deceased were identified as Pabitra Mohan Muduli and Somnath Mohanty.

Meanwhile, the officials who were taken ill were rushed to hospital. They were identified as Rahim Khilar and Dambarudhar Mahanta. (ANI)

Exercise cuts breast cancer death risk by three times

March 23, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Melbourne, Mar 23 (ANI): A new study by University of South Carolina researchers has found that women who work out are three times less likely to die of breast cancer.

The study indicated that aerobically fit women are three times less likely to die of the disease than those who seldom exercise.

For the study, researchers examined 14,000 women who were given preventive medical exams and treadmill tests at the Cooper Clinic in Houston from 1970-2001.

At the time of their exams, the women, ages 20 through 83, had no history of breast cancer.

Based on the treadmill tests, the women’s fitness was classified as low, moderate or high.

Researchers compared the fitness levels of the 68 women in the study group who had died of breast cancer through 2003.

“Women in the study’s lowest fitness category were nearly three times more likely to die from breast cancer than women in the most fit group,” the Daily Telegraph quoted Dr. Steve Blair, a USC researcher and a past president of the American College of Sports Medicine, as saying.

To reach the moderate fitness category, women need to exercise about 150 minutes per week. High fitness translates to 300 minutes per week.

“Finding a strong association between fitness, which can be improved by the relatively inexpensive lifestyle intervention of regular physical activity, such as walking, is exciting,” Blair said.

The study has been reported in the April issue of the scientific journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. (ANI)

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Jade Goody takes last glimpse of sun-kissed fields

March 17, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Mar 17 (ANI): Jade Goody, who reportedly has just hours to live, caught one last glimpse of the sun-kissed fields yesterday.

The former Big Brother star gathered all her strength to lift her head and enjoy the view from her dining room bay windows.

Jackiey, 50, and Goody’s 21-year-old hubby Jack Tweed were at the exhausted star’s side.

Jade asked Jack: “Sit me up and let me look out over the fields.”

She managed a smile as she enjoyed the sunshine at her home in Upshire, Essex.

However, the moment was short-lived and went back to sleep.

Jade is insisting that her children Bobby, five, and four-year-old Freddie -should not be present when she dies.

“Jack and Jackiey are waiting for the end. The boys may come over again if Jade wakes up, but she made it very clear she didn’t want them to see her die,” the Sun quoted a family friend, as saying.

“Jade has always been strong and will be fighting even in her sleep. But her body has been ravaged and is now succumbing completely,” the friend added. (ANI)

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Amazon could shrink by 85 percent due to global warming

March 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, March 12 (ANI): A new research has predicted that global warming will have a devastating effect on the Amazon rainforest, shrinking it by 85 percent if there is a rise of 4 degree Celsius in the temperature.

According to a report in the Guardian, the research, by some of Britain’s leading experts on climate change, shows that even severe cuts in deforestation and carbon emissions will fail to save the emblematic South American jungle.

Up to 85 percent of the forest could be lost if spiraling greenhouse gas emissions are not brought under control, the experts said.

But, even under the most optimistic climate change scenarios, the destruction of large parts of the forest is “irreversible”.

“The impacts of climate change on the Amazon are much worse than we thought,” said Vicky Pope, of the Met Office’s Hadley Centre, which carried out the study.
As temperatures rise quickly over the coming century the damage to the forest won’t be obvious straight away, but we could be storing up trouble for the future,” Pope added.

Tim Lenton, a climate expert at the University of East Anglia, called the study, presented at a global warming conference in Copenhagen, a “bombshell”.

“When I was young, I thought chopping down the trees would destroy the forest, but now it seems that climate change will deliver the killer blow,” he said.

The study used computer models to investigate how the Amazon would respond to future temperature rises.

It found that a 2C rise above pre-industrial levels, widely considered the best case global warming scenario and the target for ambitious international plans to curb emissions, would still see 20-40 percent of the Amazon die off within 100 years.

A 3C rise would see 75 percent of the forest destroyed by drought over the following century, while a 4C rise would kill 85 percent.

“The forest as we know it would effectively be gone,” Pope said.

“A temperature rise of anything over 1C commits you to some future loss of Amazon forest. Even the commonly quoted 2C target already commits us to 20-40 percent loss,” said Chris Jones, who led the research.

“On any kind of pragmatic timescale, I think we should see loss of the Amazon forest as irreversible,” he added.

According to Tony Juniper, an environmental campaigner, “There really is no time for delay. Governments must cooperate to cut industrial emissions while at the same time halting deforestation, otherwise we’ll have a mass extinction and a global warming catastrophe.” (ANI)

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One-fourth of world’s CCTVs are deployed in bureaucratic and authoritarian UK

March 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Mar.9 (ANI): A quarter of the world’s CCTV cameras are deployed in Britain, which is increasingly becoming a bureaucratic and authoritarian state, a study of Labour’s decade in power claims.
According to The Telegraph, national debt is running at 175,000 pounds per household, five times more than thought, while each year the Government has passed 3,500 regulations, along with 100,000 pages of rules and explanation.

The study’s author, Eammon Butler, a director of the leading think tank the Adam Smith Institute, claimed that two publishers because of the “unconventional” nature of the content had turned down his book.
Among the claims in the book are that Britain has a quarter of the world’s CCTV cameras, the largest of any country and that taxes have risen by 51 per cent since 1997.

In the audit of 10 years of the Labour Government, Dr Butler says that there are now 1,406 litter wardens and dog catchers who have been given powers to levy on the spot fines.

Dr Butler said he wrote the book because he got “so angry about the way that they have no concept of the rule of law”.

Dr Butler found that in just one year – 2006/7 – half of the 722,464 DNA samples collected by the police came from children, including a seven-month year old girl.

One in nine hospital patients picks up an infection during their stay on a ward, while the total cost of outstanding claims against the NHS is 9.2 billion pounds.

He said that 30,000 of the 200,000 people who die of cancer and strokes each year would survive “if they lived anywhere else in northern Europe”.

Dr Butler also claimed in the book that the number of people receiving state benefits has risen from 17 million people in 1997 to 21 million people by 2007.
He found that nearly six million families receive 16 billion pounds worth of child credit. (ANI)

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Duchess of York to run on beach in bikini to show one can still be fit at 50

March 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Melbourne, Mar 2 (ANI): Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson has revealed that she will strip down to a small black bikini, and run on an Australian beach this year, to show the world that one can still be fit even at the age of 50.

Ferguson, 49, has sought the help of British soccer ace David Beckham’s management to train her in becoming “football fit” by the time of her birthday in October.

“I am going to come down and run along a beach at 50 and be football fit, not just fit fit,” News.com.au quoted her as telling the Daily Telegraph.

The duchess has not decided on a beach yet, but suggested it could be Bondi.

She has been recommended personal trainer Neil Lewis.

Ferguson, who is also very passionate about healthy lifestyle, and in the US served as spokeswoman for Weight Watchers International, was shocked to find that cardiovascular disease was now the world’s number one killer.

“I tell the people of Australia not to give up,” she said.

“Firstly, I hate the word obese. I think it is already negative.

“I think that everybody has to do it for their own lifestyle to realise their own health.

“In other words they have to take things slowly and say ‘right, I’m not doing this because I have to get into a pair of blue jeans, I need to do this because if I don’t I’m going to die of heart disease’,” she added. (ANI)

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Spring break boosts binge drinking among college students

March 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 1 (ANI): With spring break just round the corner, researchers claim that more college students will indulge in dangerous binge drinking.

Scott Walters, Ph.D., associate professor at The University of Texas School of Public Health Dallas Regional Campus, has said that spring break is one of the peak times for dangerous binge drinking.

Almost 1,700 college students each year die as the result of alcohol misuse and thousands more are injured or sexually assaulted.

“On average, college students drink a little more than adults, but what makes college drinking so risky is the pattern. Instead of drinking small amounts all through the week, they’re more likely to save it up and drink it all at once. It’s the bunching together of drinks that makes college drinking particularly risky,” explained Walters.

And he claimed that the occurrence of this bunching is highest in spring break.

“The average student drinks three times as much during spring break as he or she would during a normal weekend. This is true for students who usually drink, and is also true for many students who usually abstain. Many abstainers jump ship during spring break,” he said.

Walters pointed out that students who travel and students who spend spring break with friends are more likely to drink than students who go home or do a service project.

Research has shown that binge drinking places students at risk for carrying out or being the victim of physical or sexual assault. Alcohol also plays a role in risky sexual behaviour including unprotected sex and sex with multiple partners.

Physical effects range from hangovers to death from alcohol poisoning.

He said that alcohol can cause changes in the structure and function of the developing brain, a critical problem since the brain continues to develop into the mid-’20s.

Walters’ research has centred on ways to reduce college drinking through tools such as an on-line program, e-CHUG , which stands for “electronic Check-Up to Go.”

The program, based on Walters’ doctoral research, has spread to more than 300 college campuses in 42 states. (ANI)

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