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Zardari whisked away from Lahore airport
Catholic dissidents call for openness
Fat-busting, heart-friendly wonder pill
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Amnesty demands justice for Bhopal gas victims
UN gives relief to two staffers
Second horse cloned in Italy
Iranian serial rapist hanged
JLo has a close shave
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Zardari whisked away from Lahore airport
Islamabad, April 16 The airport was sealed off after the government issued Outside the airport the police prevented any public movement and took into custody a number of PPP leaders including Makhdum Amin Fahim, who tried to gather there to welcome Zardari. PPP headquarters here said over 15,000 PPP cadre have been taken into custody all over the country. However, Pakistan Information Minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed denied reports that Zardari and other PPP leaders were arrested.”Zardari was neither handcuffed nor arrested”. Zardari was taken to his house by the police and left there, he said while complementing the police and the provincial Punjab government for preventing violent demonstrations during Zardari’s arrival. Television channel reporters, who were travelling along with Zardari on his return to the country after a two month reunion with his wife and children, reported that the police entered the plane as soon as it landed at 6:30 a.m., roughed up several journalists travelling with him and drove Zardari to his residence Bilawal House in the city. The film rolls of photographers and mobiles of reporters were snatched and television crews were prevented from filming the event,” a journalist of ARY TV accompanying Zardari reported.
— PTI
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Catholic dissidents call for openness
Vatican City, April 16 As 115 cardinals prepare to enter a conclave on Monday to elect the next pope, dissidents are calling for a new openness and willingness to debate such topics as the ordination of women, condom use to fight HIV/AIDS and the morality of homosexuality. “Suppression of thought, loss of ideas, closing down of discussion - that’s not an act of faith. That’s not of the Holy Spirit,” said Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun from Erie, Pa. “Unity is good, but it has a dark side.” Chittister is one of several critics of John Paul’s legacy who have been brought to Rome by an international dissident network, We Are Church, in an effort to widen the pre-conclave debate. Feeling they are shut out of normal discourse with church leaders, they are holding a series of news conferences, hoping to have an impact through the media. Their appeals for greater tolerance of dissent are echoed by theologians such as the Rev. Hans Kung of Germany and the Rev. Charles Curran of the United States, both of whom were stripped of authority to teach in Catholic universities under John Paul. Neither Kung nor Curran has come to Rome, but they are speaking out. “Many people are now hoping for a pope who will seriously free up the log-jam of reforms” and “have the courage to make a new start,” Kung said in a statement. Advocates for sex abuse victims, Catholic feminists and groups seeking a greater role for the laity in church governance are also calling for a pope who will allow more open debate. Giovanni Avena, editor of the Catholic lay newsletter Adista, said John Paul created a “medieval atmosphere” at the Vatican by emphasizing ritual for ordinary believers while restricting discussion on important issues to his inner circle. “They let everyone watch the rituals. Then they forbid access to reality,” said Avena, a priest who once worked to turn young people in Sicily against the mafia. “There is no real participation. That is why in Italy you have plazas full of people for this kind of spectacle, and empty churches. Dissidents are asking simply for citizenship to be restored to the people of the church, to the community of believers.” By all indications, the cardinals are focused on a different set of issues. Before they stopped speaking to reporters last Saturday, they pointed to the spread of Islam, the declining vitality of the church in Europe, the challenge of Pentecostalism in Latin America and the rapid march of biotechnology as their top concerns. But dissidents have taken heart from a few cardinals’ comments about the importance of “collegiality”, which in church jargon refers to the principle that all bishops, not just the pope, govern the church. In the view of some prelates, John Paul was a great evangelizer but inattentive administrator who left too much authority to his curia, the Vatican’s bureaucracy. On this, at least, the dissidents agree. — By arrangement with The LA Times-Washington Post |
Fat-busting, heart-friendly wonder pill
Washington, April 16 Luc Van Gaal and his colleagues at the University Hospital Antwerp, Belgium, undertook a trial involving 1507 people from Europe and the USA. Participants had a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kg/m2 or greater, or a BMI greater than 27 kg/m2 with abnormal blood fat levels, high blood pressure, or both. They were randomly assigned 5mg or 20mg of a drug called
rimonabant, or a placebo once daily in addition to a calorie controlled diet. 920 patients completed the one-year follow-up; 379 in the rimonabant 5mg group, 363 in the rimonabant 20mg group and 178 in the placebo group. Weight loss at 1 year was greater in patients treated with 5 mg or 20 mg of rimonabant compared with placebo. More than 67 percent of patients who completed treatment with 20mg of rimonabant achieved 5 percent or more weight loss, and 39 percent achieved 10 percent or more weight loss. Patients on 20 mg of rimonabant had greater improvements than placebo in waist circumference (average reduction of 4 cm), and cardiovascular risk factors including cholesterol, insulin resistance and prevalence of metabolic syndrome. The most common side effects leading to study discontinuation were depressed mood disorders in all treatment groups;
withdrawls due to nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, headache, dizziness, and anxiety were more frequent in the rimonabant 20 mg group than in other groups. "In this study, treatment with rimonabant over 1 year led to sustained, clinically meaningful weight loss, reduction in waist circumference, and associated improvements in several cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors," said Professor Van Gaal.
— ANI |
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Amnesty demands justice for Bhopal gas victims
New York, April 16 In a memorandum submitted to the consulate here, the protesters under the banner of Amnesty International alleged that for the past 20 years, the Indian government has “systematically” denied the rights of the victims to health and protection from environment pollution despite the Supreme Court holding that these rights are included in the right to life guaranteed under the Constitution. “Bhopal was not only a disaster but also, and continues to be, fundamental violation of the human rights. Thousand of people in Bhopal were denied their right to life and possibility hundreds of thousand have their right to health undermined. Innumerable families, already living in poverty, have suffered illness and bereavement further impairing their ability to realize a decent standard of living,” it said. More than 7,000 people were killed and around 150,000 injured, out of whom 15,000 have already died, the Amnesty said. Carrying banners reading “Justice for Bhopal” and “Clean Water Now,” they demanded that Dow Chemical Company, which has purchased Union Carbide from whose plant the deadly gas had leaked on December 3, 1984, and the Indian Government clean up the site of the deadly chemicals and ensure uncontaminated water to the people of Bhopal. The memorandum submitted to the Indian Consulate demanded full reparations, restitution and compensation for the damage done to the health of the people and to environment. International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, Boston based Association for India’ Development, Alliance for Secular and Democratic South Asia and Environment Health joined Amnesty protest. Similar memorandums, the organizers said, were also submitted to the Indian Embassy in Washington and Indian Consulates in Houston and San Francisco.
— PTI |
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UN gives relief to two staffers
United Nations, April 16
The compensation payments were disclosed a week before he is scheduled to retire after a five-year non-renewable term.
Nair vigorously denies allegations that he traded jobs for personal favors. An outside lawyer is currently examining a dossier with new allegations submitted by the UN Staff Union to determine whether they have any merit. It is not clear how Nair would be disciplined if the investigation extends beyond April 23. He is scheduled to pay a farewell call to Secretary-General Kofi Annan tomorrow. Annan's new Chief of Staff, Mark Malloch Brown, reopened an investigation of Nair after the Staff Union strongly criticised a UN investigation by senior management last year that led Annan to clear Nair of allegations of wrongdoing. The outside attorney conducting the inquiry has reportedly asked for additional information, a UN official said. What impact the compensation to the two staffers who work for Nair might have on the investigation was not known.
— AP |
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Second horse cloned in Italy
Cremona, April 16
It was cloned from Pieraz, a champion race horse and Arab breed that won the world endurance race championship in 1994 and 1996 and is now retired at a stable in the United States.
Scientists classified the birth as a breakthrough paving the way for preserving the lines of the best race horses by creating clones that could breed. “This new approach opens the possibility of conserving the genetic inheritance of exceptional horses whose genetic heritage gets lost because they are castrated,” the lab said in a statement on Thursday. The foal, named Pieraz-Cryozotech, was created by scientist at the Laboratory of Reproductive Technology in Cremona, in northern Italy, using DNA from skin cells taken from the former champion using the same technique employed to make Dolly the sheep. The sheep was euthanized two years ago after he contracted a common livestock disease and her cells showed signs of premature aging. Pieraz-Cryozootech is the second horse cloned at the lab in Cremona. The first, Promotea, was born in May 2003. The lab said the new cloned horse would not compete, but as a stallion would be able to pass on its genes.
— AP |
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Iranian serial rapist hanged
Teheran, April 16 Mousa Ali Mohammadi (40) was hanged in a central square in Isfahan in an execution watched by about 5,000 cheering people, the conservative daily Kayhan reported in its afternoon issue. His son Rasoul, who is reportedly between 16 and 17, escaped execution because of “ambiguities” about his age, according to local judicial officials quoted in the press. Both were convicted of raping and stealing gold and jewellery from schoolgirls aged 11 to 17.
— AFP |
JLo has a close shave
Los Angeles, April 16 "It's just surprising to me how aggressive they are these days. I mean, yesterday on the way home we almost got into an accident. It's just crazy. I feel like sometimes they feel like it's a game, like they're playing cops and robbers and everyone is 5", zap2it, quoted her as saying.
— ANI |
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