Latest News Clips 2017.09.18

                       

1.      Abe, Modi resolve strong Japan-India ties to underpin the regional order

The Japan Times   Sep. 14, 2017

 

GANDHINAGAR, INDIA – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Thursday condemned North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic missile tests, and called for international efforts to maximize pressure on Pyongyang.

Abe and Modi, who held talks in Gandhinagar, the capital of the western India state of Gujarat, also agreed to promote defense and maritime security cooperation between their countries amid China’s assertive activities in the Asia-Pacific region.

In a statement released after the summit, their 10th in three years, the two leaders urged North Korea to “abandon nuclear and ballistic missile development and refrain from any provocative act” after it conducted its sixth nuclear test on Sept. 3 following its launch of a ballistic missile that flew over Japan in late August.

The Japanese and Indian leaders also called on the North to honor U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions and other international agreements.

“Strengthened Japan-India ties are the basis to underpin the regional order,” Abe said at a joint news conference, stressing he will work together with Modi to take the lead toward peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and the world.

Abe said he and Modi agreed on the need to “make (North Korea) change its policies.”

The U.N. body on Monday adopted its latest resolution on the North, imposing the first restrictions on exports of crude oil and petroleum products.

Tackling another security challenge facing both countries, Abe and Modi, in a show of unity, reaffirmed the significance of “freedom of navigation at sea, overflight and unobstructed trade based on international law,” apparently in reference to China’s expansionary activities in the South China Sea.

They agreed to promote bilateral cooperation in the field of defense equipment and technology, and to continue bolstering trilateral collaboration, also involving the United States, through joint maritime drills.

In the statement, Abe and Modi said they will continue discussions on the possible export to India of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force’s US-2 amphibious aircraft for search and rescue purposes. But its high price tag has prevented the two countries from reaching a deal, Japanese officials said.

Although Tokyo had sought to upgrade security talks with New Delhi, which currently involve vice foreign and defense ministers, to a ministerial-level dialogue, Abe and Modi resolved to maintain the current program, Japanese government officials said.

On economics, Abe pledged to provide about ¥190 billion in low-interest loans for a new high-speed railway and other infrastructure projects in India.

Ahead of Thursday’s summit, Abe attended a ceremony to inaugurate a project to build a new high-speed railway in India employing Japanese bullet train technology.

Modi joined Abe at the ceremony for the railway project, which will link India’s financial centers of Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

Tokyo hopes India will adopt the Japanese technology for other high-speed railway systems in the country.

The two leaders also hailed a bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation agreement that entered into force of in July, enabling Japan to export its nuclear power technology to India. They expressed hope that a new working group will promote cooperation in the sector, according to the statement.

But critics say concerns remain that technology exported to India, which conducted nuclear tests in the past without joining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, could be diverted to military use.

With regard to cultural exchanges, Abe pledged to offer support in opening Japanese language courses at 100 higher education facilities in India and training a total of 1,000 Japanese language teachers over the next five years.

2.      U.N. seeks 'massive' help for Rohingya fleeing Myanmar 'ethnic cleansing'

Reuters    Sep.14, 2017

 

Rohingya refugees are seen at Thaingkhali makeshift refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, September 14, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

DHAKA/YANGON (Reuters) - The United Nations appealed on Thursday for massive help for nearly 400,000 Muslims from Myanmar who have fled to Bangladesh, with concern growing that the number could keep rising, unless Myanmar ends what critics denounce as “ethnic cleansing”.

The Rohingya are fleeing from a Myanmar military offensive in the western state of Rakhine that began after a series of guerrilla attacks on Aug. 25 on security posts and an army camp in which about a dozen people were killed.

“We urge the international community to step up humanitarian support and come up with help,” Mohammed Abdiker, director of operations and emergencies for the International Organisation for Migration, told a news conference in the Bangladeshi capital. The need was “massive”, he added.

The violence in Rakhine and the exodus of refugees is the most pressing problem Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has faced since becoming national leader last year.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday urged Myanmar to end the violence, which he said was best described as ethnic cleansing.

The government of Buddhist-majority Myanmar rejects such accusations, saying it is targeting “terrorists”.

Numerous Rohingya villages in the north of Rakhine have been torched but authorities have denied that security forces or Buddhist civilians set the fires. They blame the insurgents, and say 30,000 non-Muslim villagers were also displaced.

Smoke was rising from at least five places on the Myanmar side of the border on Thursday, a Reuters reporter in Bangladesh said. It was not clear what was burning or who set the fires.

“Ethnic cleansing” is not recognized as an independent crime under international law, the U.N. Office on Genocide Prevention says, but it has been used in U.N. resolutions and acknowledged in judgments and indictments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

A U.N. panel of experts defined it as “rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups”.

3.      What should I do if I feel the flu coming on?

 

Staying hydrated is essential if you're infected with the flu. 

•  Alice Wilkinson 

The Telegraph   13 SEPTEMBER 2017

"Feed a cold, starve a fever," the saying goes. But if you've ever been hit with a spout of the flu then you'll know this old wives' tale does very little to get you through. Cue a week of being bedridden with roaring temperatures and aching muscles.

And with Australia and New Zealand recovering from one of their heaviest flu seasons in history, health officials are predicting that the NHS is about to face the worst flu season to date.

Flu viruses are transported in droplets that come from our mouths and noses. CREDIT: VLADISLAV KOCHELAEVSKIY /ALAMY 

From signs and symptoms to remedies and prevention - here's all you need to know if you feel the flu coming on. 

How do you get the flu?

Flu is an infectious viral illness. Carried in droplets that come out of the nose and mouth, it's easily spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

Anyone who breathes in these droplets can catch the flu.  Because the virus can live on surfaces for up to 24 hours, it's very easy to contaminate shared spaces. 

Being vigilant with hygiene will prevent the spread of the flu virus. 

Good hygiene and regularly cleaning kitchen surfaces, door handles, telephones and desk spaces is a good way of preventing infection. 

What are the symptoms of flu?

It's easy to confuse the symptoms of a common cold with those of the flu. Usually, flu symptoms start very quickly, include fever and aching muscles and leave you feeling unable to carry out your normal daily activities.

Flu symptoms include:

•  A sudden fever of 38 degrees or higher 
• A dry, chesty cough
• A headache
• Tiredness and weakness
• Chills
• Aching muscles
• Limb or joint pain
• Diarrhoea or abdomnial pain
• Nausea and Vomiting 
• A sore throat
• A runny or blocked nose
• Sneezing
• Loss of appetite
• Difficulty sleeping  

How long are you contagious when you have the flu? 

Flu symptoms usually last between three and seven days.  You are infectious from the moment your symptoms start, so it is important to stay off work or school until they ease.

Even after a week, flu symptoms such as tiredness and coughing can persist.  

However, some symptoms – such as coughing and tiredness – can persist. Individuals have different strength immune systems, so there isn't a set time frame within which you are infectious.

Those with weaker immune systems will be contagious for longer. It is important to be vigilant with hygiene after you've recovered to prevent further contamination. 

How long does the flu last?

While most sufferers fully recover from the flu within a week, some symptoms – such as a cough or feeling weak and tired – can persist for a few weeks following the infection. 

What should I do if I have the flu?

Fit and healthy individuals who are infected with the flu virus can be treated at home. The NHS advise sufferers to rest at home and keep warm until symptoms ease. It's important to drink plenty of water to avoid dehydration. 

Rest and keep warm, is the advice for flu sufferers from the NHS.  

Over the counter pain killers such as ibuprofen and paracetamol can help relieve symptoms. High risk patients (those over the age of 65, pregnant or with existing health conditions) should contact their GP. 

When should you go to the doctor for the flu?

If you are a high risk patient, the NHS advises that you visit your GP at the first sign of flu symptoms.  High risk patients include those over the age of 65, pregnant or with existing health conditions. 

How can you prevent spreading the flu?

The virus is carried in small droplets in the mouth and nose. If you are infected, anything that stops the spread of these droplets will prevent spreading.

Regularly wiping kitchen surfaces and shared spaces will help prevent the spread of the flu virus.

For example, washing your hands regularly, keeping surfaces clean and staying at home while infectioious.   

Should you get the flu vaccine?

The NHS offer a flu vaccine for indiviuals at high risk. This includes anyone over the age of 65, pregnant women, children and adults with underlying health conditions and those with weakened immune systems.  Those eligible for a vaccine are advised to get it once a year during autumn (October to November.) 

Latest News Clips 2017.09.04

                      

1.      A Sea of Health and Environmental Hazards in Houston’s Floodwaters

The New York Times   AUG. 31, 2017

 

Navigating floodwaters brought by Harvey on Tuesday in Houston. CreditDavid J. Phillip/Associated Press

Officials in Houston are just beginning to grapple with the health and environmental risks that lurk in the waters dumped by Hurricane Harvey, a stew of toxic chemicals, sewage, debris and waste that still floods much of the city.

Flooded sewers are stoking fears of cholera, typhoid and other infectious diseases. Runoff from the city’s sprawling petroleum and chemicals complex contains any

number of hazardous compounds. Lead, arsenic and other toxic and carcinogenic elements may be leaching from some two dozen Superfund sites in the Houston area.

Porfirio Villarreal, a spokesman for the Houston Health Department, said the hazards of the water enveloping the city were self-evident.

“There’s no need to test it,” he said. “It’s contaminated. There’s millions of contaminants.”

He said health officials were urging people to stay out of the water if they could, although it is already too late for tens of thousands.

“We’re telling people to avoid the floodwater as much as possible. Don’t let your children play in it. And if you do touch it, wash it off,” Mr. Villarreal said. “Remember, this is going to go on for weeks.”

Flooding always brings the danger of contamination and disease, though epidemics from floods in the United States have been rare. This inundation, which put nearly 30 percent of the nation’s fourth-largest city underwater, will pose enormous problems, both immediately and when the waters finally recede.

Dr. David Persse, Houston’s director of Emergency Medical Services, said officials were monitoring the drinking water system and the sewer system, both of which he said were intact so far. But hundreds of thousands of people across the 38 Texas counties affected by Hurricane Harvey use private wells, according to an estimate by Louisiana State University researchers, and those people must fend for themselves.

“Well water is at risk for being contaminated,” Dr. Persse said, “and the well owner is really the one who is responsible. In the City of Houston, we have folks that use well water but we strongly recommend against it — and this will sound awful — we don’t take responsibility for it.”

Harris County, home to Houston, hosts more than two dozen current and former toxic waste sites designated under the federal Superfund program. The sites contain what the Environmental Protection Agency calls legacy contamination: lead, arsenic, polychlorinated biphenyls, benzene and other toxic and carcinogenic compounds from industrial activities many years ago.

Kathy Blueford-Daniels grew up just a block away from one of those sites, a wood-treating facility that used cancer-causing creosote and other toxins. As a young girl, she would try to avoid the plant and the pungent, oil-like goo that lined the ditches around it.

Now 60, Ms. Blueford-Daniels still lives on the same block, in Houston’s Fifth Ward. So when Harvey’s rains started to pour into her neighborhood, she immediately began to wonder what the rising waters would carry off the old industrial property.

“I wasn’t so fearful of the storm. But I’m scared of that site,” she said. “I thought: This is going to be a travesty. The contamination could be going anywhere.”

An E.P.A. spokesman, David Gray, said in a statement that the agency would inspect two flooded Superfund sites in Corpus Christi, but he did not specify which ones or say whether additional sites elsewhere in Texas would be checked.

Houston also lies at the center of the nation’s oil and chemical industry, its bustling shipping channel home to almost 500 industrial sites. Damaged refineries and other oil facilities have already released more than two million pounds of hazardous substances into the air this week, including nitrogen oxide as well as benzene and other volatile organic compounds, according to a tally by the Environmental Defense Fund of company filings to Texas state environmental regulators.

2.      Trump and Abe vow to increase pressure after North Korea fires missile over Japan

Leaders agreed to call for an emergency meeting of the UN security council to discuss the launch

The Guardian   in Tokyo  29 August 2017

 

Donald Trump and Shinzo Abe have vowed to increase pressure on North Korea after the regime launched a missile over Japan on Tuesday morning.

The Japanese prime minister denounced the launch as an “unprecedented and grave threat” to the country’s security. In a 40-minute phone call with the US president they agreed to call for an emergency meeting of the UN security council to discuss the situation.

Officials in South Korea said the missile may have flown further than any other tested by North Korea. The test, one of the most provocative ever from the reclusive state, sent a clear message to Washington just weeks after Kim Jong-un threatened to target the US Pacific territory of Guam with similar intermediate-range missiles.

It also demonstrated the regime’s willingness to raise the diplomatic stakes by sending a missile directly over Japanese territory. Pyongyang has tested more powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) this year, but Tuesday’s launch followed a much flatter trajectory than those tests.

Trump said the US was “100% with Japan” and repeated his strong commitment to the defence of Japan, Abe said shortly after the call.

“The outrageous act of firing a missile over our country is an unprecedented, serious and grave threat and greatly damages regional peace and security,” Abe told reporters in Tokyo, adding that his government had protested to Pyongyang via the Japanese embassy in Beijing.

The missile was the third fired by North Korea to have passed over Japanese territory. The first was in 1998 and the second in 2009, although Pyongyang claims they were satellites.

Abe said Japan would “strongly call for increased pressure on North Korea in cooperation with the international community” via the security council.

The missile, thought to be a new intermediate-range Hwasong-12, flew over Hokkaido and landed in the Pacific about 733 miles (1,180km) east of the northern Japanese island, South Korean and Japanese officials said.

The Hwasong-12 is the same type of missile North Korea recently threatened to launch towards Guam.

China called for restraint and warned that the situation on the Korean peninsular had reached “a tipping point approaching a crisis”.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily press briefing in Beijing: “Think hard about it, who do you think should take the blame, if China is urging all parties to calm down while one party holds constant military exercises … and the other is constantly launching missiles?”

Japan’s J-Alert warning system advised people across a large area of northern Japan to seek shelter. Japan’s self-defence forces did not attempt to shoot down the missile and there were no reports of damage from falling debris.

The public broadcaster NHK said the missile had been launched from a site near the North Korean capital, Pyongyang and passed over a sparsely populated area of Hokkaido just after 6am local time (10pm Monday British summer time). It broke into three parts and landed in the sea.

Seoul’s joint chiefs of staff (JCS) said the missile travelled about 2,700km and reached a maximum height of 550km.

The JCS said it was analysing the launch with the US and that South Korea’s military had strengthened its monitoring and preparation in case of further actions from North Korea.

Abe said his government was trying to establish the details of the launch and was doing everything possible to ensure the safety of the Japanese people.

Tuesday’s launch may have been a show of defiance towards military drills involving US and South Korean troops as well as a smaller number of personnel from other countries.

The drills have coincided with a dramatic rise in tensions on the Korean peninsula after North Korea’s test launch of two ICBMs and its threat to target seas off the coast of the Guam.

Seoul and Washington say their drills are an opportunity for the allies to improve their defensive capabilities but Pyongyang routinely denounces them as a dress rehearsal for war against North Korea.

3.      Does Cooking Boost Nutrients in Tomatoes and Spinach?

The New York Times        SEPT. 1, 2017

  

CreditTony Cenicola/The New York Times

Q. Is it true tomatoes and spinach release more of their nutrients when they’ve been cooked?

A. It’s true for some nutrients, but not for others.

Water-soluble vitamins like vitamin C and the B vitamins, which include folate, leach out of vegetables if you boil them, but some will be retained in the stock, so “use it if you’re making soup,” said Helen Rasmussen, a senior research dietitian at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. Vitamin levels are reduced the longer you expose them to heat; “they’re just not stable,” she said.

Levels of other nutrients, however, may increase. One study found that while cooking decreased the amount of vitamin C in tomatoes, the cooking process increased levels of antioxidants that could be absorbed by the body, including levels of lycopene, the carotenoid plant pigment that helps protect the body from free radical damage. “You might be able to get more lycopene out because the heat starts to break down the cell matrix and that actually allows some of the tied-up carotenoids to be released from the cell walls,” Dr. Rasmussen said.

Raw spinach provides a lot of fiber, but cooked spinach may provide more beta carotene: One study found that three times as much beta carotene — an antioxidant that’s a form of vitamin A — was absorbed from cooked spinach compared with raw spinach.

 “There are pluses and minuses with both ways of preparing food,” Dr. Rasmussen said. Since spinach loses so much volume when it’s cooked, a cup of cooked spinach contains a lot more of the leafy vegetable, which may more than make up for the loss of water-soluble vitamins.

Generally speaking, boiling has the harshest effect on heat-sensitive nutrients. Stir-frying or sautéing retains more nutrients than boiling, but if you want to retain the nutrients, steaming and microwaving vegetables may be the optimal cooking methods.