The number of Americans diagnosed with type 2 diabetes has now topped 19 million, and a new study says a third of adults with the disease don’t even know they have it. The researchers found that another 26 percent of adults had ‘impaired fasting glucose,’ a precursor to diabetes. ‘So, if you add that together with the 9.3 percent of people with diabetes, that means that fully one-third of the adult population — 73 million Americans — have diabetes or they may be on their way to getting it,’ said lead researcher Catherine Cowie, director of the diabetes epidemiology program at the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Her team’s report appears in the June issue of Diabetes Care. The researchers note that about 95 percent of all cases of diabetes in the United States fall under the category of type 2 disease — a gradual loss of insulin production and sensitivity that’s usually linked to overweight and obesity. According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, survey data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of 1988 to 1994 and […]
The notorious US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay has been hit by fresh allegations of human rights abuses, with claims that dozens of children were sent there – some as young as 14 years old. Lawyers in London estimate that more than 60 detainees held at the terrorists’ prison camp were boys under 18 when they were captured. They include at least 10 detainees still held at the US base in Cuba who were 14 or 15 when they were seized – including child soldiers who were held in solitary confinement, repeatedly interrogated and allegedly tortured. The disclosures threaten to plunge the Bush administration into a fresh row with Britain, its closest ally in the war on terror, only days after the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, repeated his demands for the closure of the detention facility. It was, he said, a ‘symbol of injustice’. Whitehall sources said the new allegations, from the London-based legal rights group Reprieve, directly contradicted the Bush administration’s assurances to the UK that no juveniles had been held there. ‘We would take a very, very dim view if it transpires that there were actually minors there,’ said an official. One child […]
The Aral Sea was one of the world’s biggest inland bodies of water – until Soviet engineers destroyed it in the 1960s. Now, thanks to a new dam, it’s coming back. Geoffrey Lean reports Published: Fresh fish are on sale cheaply again in markets near the world’s most desiccated sea. Cold green water is creeping back towards dozens of long-abandoned harbours, and for the first time in a generation, fishermen are launching their boats where recently there were only waves of sand. Life is returning astonishingly quickly to the North Aral Sea in Central Asia, partially reversing one of the world’s greatest environmental disasters. Just months after the completion of a dam to conserve its waters, the sea has largely recovered – confounding experts who said it was beyond rescue. Since April the level of the sea has risen by more than 3m, flooding over 800 sq km of dried-out seabed, and bringing hope to a part of the world bereft of it since Soviet engineers stole the waters in the 1960s. The drying up of the Aral Sea – once the world’s fourth largest inland water body, covering an area the size of Belgium and […]
Hamas gunmen were back at major Gaza intersections The Hamas-led government has sent its private militia back into the streets of Gaza, a day after withdrawing the force to help calm an increasingly bloody standoff with forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the president. Hamas officials on Saturday said the move was not meant as a provocation. But Abbas’ Fatah movement said the deployment risked igniting new violence. The 3,000-strong Hamas militia has been at the centre of the Palestinian infighting. Hamas’ decision to withdraw the black-clad force on Friday, which was banned by Abbas, was widely seen as a conciliatory gesture. Youssef Zahar, spokesman for the militia, said Saturday’s deployment did not contradict the previous day’s decision. At the time, Hamas said the force would remain on standby at fixed locations and resume limited patrols in the future. ‘The police stations are closed to us, so we’re making use of some streets,’ Zahar said. The Gaza Strip has been plagued by armed chaos and lawlessness since the Israeli army cracked down and destroyed much of the Palestinians security infrastructures in retaliation for the Palestinian uprising Israel did withdraw from the Gaza […]
In a decision that could set the tone for journalism in the digital age, a California appeals court ruled Friday that bloggers, like traditional reporters, have the right to keep their sources confidential. A panel of three judges said in a 69-page decision that a group of bloggers did not have to divulge their sources to Cupertino’s Apple Computer Inc., contending that the same laws that protect traditional journalists, the First Amendment and California’s Shield Law, also apply to bloggers. Siding with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a high-tech legal group that had filed the appeal, the judges said that Apple could not force the bloggers to reveal the identity of the person — presumably an Apple employee — who had leaked details about a digital-music-related project code-named ‘Asteroid’ to a number of bloggers. The details of the product release were published on several Web logs, Internet sites commonly referred to as blogs, including Jason O’Grady’s PowerPage, which reports on Apple news. ‘This was a huge win for the First Amendment and for journalists who publish online,’ said Lauren Gelman, associate director for Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society, who filed a brief supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation. […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
