Pakistan doctor in bin Laden case starts hunger strike

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - The Pakistani doctor who helped the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hunt down Osama bin Laden started a hunger strike in his jail cell this week to protest against his living conditions, prison officials said on Thursday.

Shakil Afridi was sentenced in May to 33 years in jail for his links to a banned militant group. The decision was widely seen as punishment for helping the CIA find the al Qaeda leader, and has led to strained ties between Washington and Islamabad.

Prison officials in the northwestern city of Peshawar said they are keeping Afridi in solitary confinement and will not allow him to have visitors nor speak to anyone by telephone as punishment for a media interview he gave in September.

"After the interview in which Dr. Shakil Afridi levelled serious allegations against the country's top spy agency, the prison authorities barred his family members and lawyers from meeting him," said a prison official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

"In protest, Dr. Shakil has begun a hunger strike for an indefinite period."

An investigation following the September interview found that Afridi had bribed guards to use their cell phones to speak to journalists, family and friends, making a total of 58 calls, prison officials said. Six prison guards have been suspended.

U.S. officials have hailed Afridi, aged in his 40s, as a hero for helping pinpoint bin Laden's location before the May 2011 raid that killed the al Qaeda leader.

Afridi's family and lawyers maintain he was not guilty of any wrongdoing.

"He is not allowed to meet with us, his brother and other family members. He is a human being and would definitely be frustrated enough to begin a hunger strike," said Afridi's lawyer, Samiullah Afridi.

Afridi had been working with the CIA for years before the bin Laden raid, providing intelligence on militant groups in Pakistan's unruly tribal region.

The bin Laden raid was a humiliation for Pakistan's powerful military and raised questions about whether it was harboring militants.

U.S. President Barack Obama said the al Qaeda leader would have escaped if the United States had sought Pakistan's permission ahead of the raid.

(Writing by Randy Fabi; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-doctor-bin-laden-case-starts-hunger-strike-060918643.html

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National Briefing | West: California: Poisonous Mushroom Soup Kills Another

A fourth person has died from eating a soup made with poisonous wild mushrooms this month at a senior care facility in Northern California, the authorities said Tuesday. The victim?s identity was not released. Three other people at the six-bed Gold Age Villa in Loomis died from eating the mushrooms in what Placer County sheriff?s investigators have characterized as an accident. All of the victims were sickened on Nov. 8, including the caretaker who made the soup.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/us/california-poisonous-mushroom-soup-kills-another.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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More omnivore dilemmas: Seasonal diet changes can cause reproductive stress in primates

ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2012) ? When seasonal changes affect food availability, omnivores like blue monkeys adapt by changing their diets, but such nutritional changes may impact female reproduction, according to research published November 28 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Steffen Foerster from Barnard College, and colleagues from Columbia University and the Smithsonian Institution.

The authors found that levels of fecal glucocorticoids (fGC), a stress marker, increased when female monkeys shifted their diet towards lower quality fallback foods, whereas the levels decreased when the monkeys had access to preferred foods like insects, fruits and young leaves.

They also found that lactating females and those in the later stages of pregnancy showed greater increases in the stress marker than females who were not in these stages of reproduction. According to the authors, their results suggest that these seasonal changes in food availability may affect inter-birth intervals in these primates, and also affect the timing of infant independence from mothers.

Foerster adds, ""While it was interesting to find that even subtle changes in dietary composition may have strong effects on female reproductive decisions, it is equally noteworthy that social stress was almost entirely absent from blue monkey societies. Our study makes the point that integrating behavioral, ecological, and hormonal measures can reveal adaptive behavioral and reproductive strategies that would otherwise be difficult to discern."

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Journal Reference:

  1. Steffen Foerster, Marina Cords, Steven L. Monfort. Seasonal Energetic Stress in a Tropical Forest Primate: Proximate Causes and Evolutionary Implications. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (11): e50108 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0050108

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/NFsqAA79Ps4/121128182947.htm

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CPP changes buffered impact of aging population ... - Financial Post

Canada?s changes to the national pension scheme in the 1990s helped buffer the country against demographic changes that are affecting a number of countries including Japan, Russia and Hong Kong, according to pension consultant Mercer.

?Unlike many countries around the world, Canada acted in the 1990s to help mitigate the future impact of an aging population on its national pension system,? said Scott Clausen, a partner in Mercer?s Canadian retirement business.

The percentage of Canada?s population that is of working age is projected decline to 65% from 69% over the next eight years. That is double the percentage point decline expected in the United States and the United Kingdom, according to Mercer.

Among the steps Canada took in the 1990s was to increase Canada Pension Plan contributions to an amount larger than needed to meet benefit payments at the time. The excess contributions are invested by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and are expected to help mitigate contribution increases or benefit reductions that would otherwise have been required as the population aged, Mercer said.

Canada also took ?significant steps? to reduce its level of federal government debt and, earlier this year, made changes to its Old Age Security program so the start of benefits will ultimately kick in at age 67 rather than 65.

Some notable Canadians such as former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge and David Denison, the former chief executive of the CPPIB, have recently pointed to the successes of the Canada Pension Plan model to explain why expansion of the national scheme might be preferable to the federal government initiative to fill gaps in retirement planning with a pooled pension administered by the banks and insurers for Canadians who don?t have a workplace plan.

Ottawa moved ahead with legislation to create the Pooled Registered Pension Plan (PRPP) in June.

So far, only Quebec has announced its intention to introduce companion legislation to roll out the retirement savings vehicle.

?All provinces agreed to move forward with the PRPP framework at the December 2010 meeting of Finance ministers,? Ted Menzies, minister of state for finance, said in an emailed statement Thursday. Citing a Finance Canada study in 2009 that identified a gap in private savings, he said PRPPs ?are a low-cost savings option will help address that gap.?

A report released by the OECD in June?recognized the role of private pensions in addressing gaps in retirement systems in industrialized countries.

Source: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/11/29/changes-to-cpp-keep-canada-ahead-of-demographic-trends-mercer/

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Home Brewing Skyrockets ? A Look at the Benefits for Newbies ...

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Fire highlights harsh lives of Bangladesh workers

Bangladeshis prepare to bury the bodies of a part of the victims of Saturday's fire in a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Bangladesh held a day of mourning Tuesday for the 112 people killed in a weekend fire at a garment factory, and labor groups planned more protests to demand better worker safety in an industry notorious for operating in firetraps. (AP Photo/Pavel Rahman)

Bangladeshis prepare to bury the bodies of a part of the victims of Saturday's fire in a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Bangladesh held a day of mourning Tuesday for the 112 people killed in a weekend fire at a garment factory, and labor groups planned more protests to demand better worker safety in an industry notorious for operating in firetraps. (AP Photo/Pavel Rahman)

Bangladeshi garments workers take out a protest through a street to mourn the death of the victims of Saturday's fire in a garment factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Bangladesh held a day of mourning Tuesday for the 112 people killed in the weekend fire, and labor groups planned more protests to demand better worker safety in an industry notorious for operating in firetraps. (AP Photo/Khurshed Rinku)

Bangladeshis prepare to bury the bodies of some of the victims of Saturday's fire in a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Bangladesh held a day of mourning Tuesday for the 112 people killed in the weekend fire at the factory, and labor groups planned more protests to demand better worker safety in an industry notorious for operating in firetraps. (AP Photo/Khurshed Rinku)

Bangladeshi women watch the bodies of some of the victims of Saturday's fire in a garment factory being prepared to be buried, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Bangladesh held a day of mourning Tuesday for the 112 people killed at the factory, and labor groups planned more protests to demand better worker safety in an industry notorious for operating in firetraps. (AP Photo/Khurshed Rinku)

Bangladeshi garments workers take out a protest through the streets to mourn the death of the victims of Saturday's fire in a garment factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Bangladesh held a day of mourning Tuesday for the 112 people killed in a weekend fire at a garment factory, and labor groups planned more protests to demand better worker safety in an industry notorious for operating in firetraps. (AP Photo/Ashraful Alam Tito)

(AP) ? Clothing is king in Bangladesh, a country that exports more garments than any other in the world except China. It is responsible for four out of every five export dollars and has turned factory owners into members of parliament and leaders of sports clubs.

That strength has often been turned against the workers in those factories, especially those who complain about poor working conditions and pay that can be less than $40 a month. A law-enforcement agency called the Industrial Police is specifically assigned to deal with unrest in factories, and labor activists accuse government forces of killing one of their leaders. Employees are barred by law from forming trade unions, even though Bangladesh allows workers in other industries to unionize.

Workers hope that could change following the industry's latest tragedy, a fire Saturday that killed 112 people at a factory that made T-shirts and polo shirts for Wal-Mart and other retailers around the world. But they have their doubts.

"The owners must treat the workers with respect. They should care about their lives and they must keep in mind that they are human beings. They have families, parents and children," said Nazma Akhter, president of Combined Garment Workers Federation. "Is there anybody to really pay any heed to our words?"

There have been many garment-factory fires in Bangladesh ? since 2006, more than 300 people have died. But Saturday's was by far the deadliest, and has drawn international attention to labor practices as the government tries to encourage Western countries and companies to expand their relationships here.

The Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory had no emergency exit, and workers trying to flee found the main exit locked. Fire extinguishers were left unused, either because they didn't work or workers didn't know how to use them. One survivor said that after the fire alarm went off, managers told workers to get back to work.

In an interview published Tuesday in Dhaka's Daily Star newspaper, the managing director of Tazreen Fashions expressed concern ? about possibly losing foreign buyers. "I'm concerned that my business with them will be hampered," said Delwar Hossain. But there was no mention in the article of concern for victims or their families.

Tazreen has not responded to repeated requests from AP for comment.

Bangladesh's $20 billion-a-year garment industry accounts for 80 percent of its total export earnings and contributes a major share of the country's $110 billion GDP. This from an export market created only in 1978, with a consignment for 10,000 men's shirts.

By 1982, the country had 47 readymade garment factories. In three years the number rose to 587. Now it has more than 4,000.

The factory owners are a powerful group, holding parliamentary posts in both major parties. The head of the prominent Dhaka sports club Mohamedan is in the business; so is a former president of the national cricket board.

An important reason for their success is cheap labor. Almost a third of the South Asian country of 150 million lives in extreme poverty.

The minimum wage for a garment worker is 3,000 takas ($38) a month, after being nearly doubled this year following violent protests by workers. According to the World Bank, the per capita income in Bangladesh was about $64 a month in 2011.

On Tuesday, as Bangladesh held a day of mourning for the dead, 10,000 people, including relatives and colleagues, gathered near the site of Saturday's blaze, many wearing black badges as a sign of mourning. Security forces were deployed, but no clashes were reported.

"I've lost my son and the only member to earn for the family," said Nilufar Khatoon, the mother of a worker who died. "What shall I do now?"

The country's factories were closed as a mark of respect, and prayers for the dead were held in places of worship across the Muslim-majority South Asian nation. The national flag flew at half-staff in government buildings.

Authorities buried 51 unidentified bodies in a grave outside Dhaka. Many of the dead were charred beyond recognition. Some other bodies were buried in the same grave Monday.

Also Tuesday, about 2,000 members of 14 labor organizations held a rally in central Dhaka where leaders accused the government of neglecting the rights of garment workers.

About 15,000 workers protested a day earlier near the burned factory to demand better safety.

The factory itself is gutted. Its eight floors are littered with burned clothes, yarn, machinery and furniture. Broken windows and black ashes are scattered on the floors and staircases.

Authorities have formed three committees to look into the incident. An industry group has suggested that sabotage may be to blame, though fire officials have said it was not the fire itself, but the poor safety measures that caused the high death toll.

"It was complete darkness," said Mohammad Zakir Hossain, a Tazreen worker who survived the fire. "I couldn't see anything but I started moving forward. I can hear shouts from many of my colleagues in the darkness, 'Oh Allah, save me, save me.'"

Hossain says he was making 4,500 takas ($55) a month, plus about 30 takas (37 cents) an hour in overtime.

Wal-Mart has said the Tazreen factory was making clothes for the retail giant without its knowledge. Wal-Mart, which had received an audit deeming the factory "high risk" last year, said it had decided to stop doing business with Tazreen, but that a supplier subcontracted work to the factory anyway. Wal-Mart said it stopped working with that supplier on Monday.

Wal-Mart and other companies linked to the factory's products have expressed sympathy for the victims and a commitment to improving worker safety.

The European Union's delegation to Bangladesh said while it recognizes the importance of the garment industry to the local economy and European consumers, "the EU has always been very clear about the need to improve working standards and safety in this sector."

Dan Mozena, the U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh, also expressed his concern over labor rights and warned that any chaos in the sector could drive global brands away.

The United States and even many global buyers have been pressing Bangladesh to allow garment factories to form trade unions, but the government and industry have resisted.

The industry fell under more pressure after a labor leader was killed in April, his body found in a roadside ditch. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton raised concern about the killing, and workers' rights issues overall, during a visit to Bangladesh the following month.

Aminul Islam had complained before his death about police harassment, wiretapping and even being abducted and tortured, allegedly by a domestic intelligence agency. Authorities are investigating his death but have revealed nothing about their progress. Meanwhile, the leading Bengali-language Prothom Alo newspaper recently reported, citing an anonymous source, that top officials of the National Security Intelligence had regular contact with the main suspect before and after Islam's death.

Even as it fends off criticism, Bangladesh is seeking more business from the West, including pressing the United States for quota-free and duty-free access for its garment products to the U.S. market.

Earlier this month, senior executives from more than two dozen global brands and retailers visited Bangladesh in a bid to forge long-term agreements to source garments from its factories.

In September, Karl-Johan Persson, chief executive of the Swedish retail chain H&M, visited Bangladesh and said his 2,600-store group would increase its business relationship with the country.

Mustafizur Rahman, executive director of the Center for Policy Dialogue, Bangladesh's leading independent think tank, said there is "hypocrisy" among buyers who "talk about ethical buying and ethical sourcing, but when it comes to price they refuse to offer a good rate. They often go to less compliant factories for a cheaper rate. Being compliant is not cheap."

At the same time, Rahman said Saturday's fire "highlights inner weaknesses of a giant industry very essential for the country's survival."

"This has come as a strong warning," he said. "But it was too costly."

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, blames a "nexus of influence" between senior government officials and factory owners that "allows impunity to flourish." Until that changes, he said, government vows to improve safety should be treated with skepticism.

"Six months or eight months down the road, if history is any indication, we will have another factory fire, and more workers will be killed," he said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-11-27-Bangladesh-Factory%20Fire/id-8d7b1acb8e6145c2b8868e7bd09b0aa0

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?I?m Going To Have To Fire the Dream Master?

Click the arrow on the audio player to?hear Richard Kenney read this poem. You can also download?the recording or?subscribe?to?Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes.?

Who fabricates our dreams? Well, we must, or Anyway some part of us. The mystery?s the utter Ambush of it: how, in night?s apparent theater, Our fingers clench the velvet armrests, our eyes Widen with suspense ? How could we surprise Ourselves? And so,
We posit the cloaked figure of the Dream Master. Mine?s got to go.

To be clear: the problem?s not In the theater itself, albeit shabby, old, ornate, A nighthawk?s haunt, a lonely man?s demesne. Nor in the mothy, slow unrolling screen. Nor in the projection equipment?a little flickery, as to That; still, the problem?s with the Dream Master. Ask Carl Jung, spooning schlag in the Schnitzel Platz. The problem? The problem? The problem?s with the plots.

Not naked, late. Not naked, late, at the lectern, hearing One?s name announced: Electrical Engineering Colloquium? again!?the keynote speaker. Not naked anywhere obliquer Than doing taxes after a day of doing taxes; Likewise dishes, any dully punishing repetitive praxis Requiring finer motor skills and better Eyesight than one possesses, like disassembling a carburetor By dying flashlight, or like?Oh, never mind. These lines Are beginning to seem A little too much like one of those damned, idiotic dreams From which, dear audience, you may take The Master?s word, you are now requested to awake.

For Slate's poetry submission guidelines, click here. Click here?to visit Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project site.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=9c4a97087d7a0c89f514213c3975ef56

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Linda asks?If two independent experiments failed to replicate the Abiogenesis Theory does it falsify the Theory?In natural science, abiogenesis or biopoesis is the study of how biological life arises from inorganic matter. (Not ignorance matters, That?s an atheist fundie term)

The two independently conducted experiments one by an agnostic and the other by an atheist team both failed miserably.

The agnostic bashed two rocks together in pond scum and failed to make life or dinosaurs.

While

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Source: http://healthfitnessbloginfo.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/hemorrhoids-relief-natural/

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Obama spoke with House Speaker Boehner, others on "fiscal cliff"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama spoke with House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner over the weekend on efforts to avert the looming "fiscal cliff" of budget cuts and tax rises that threatens to tip the U.S. economy back into recession.

A White House official said on Monday that Obama also spoke with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a fellow Democrat, and said discussions among staff members continued.

The president met with congressional leaders, including Boehner and Reid, 10 days ago seeking common ground following Obama's re-election for another four-year term on November 6.

Boehner and fellow Republicans oppose the Democrats' proposal to raise taxes on the very wealthy as part of arrangements to rein in the enormous U.S. budget deficits.

Starting on January 2, about $600 billion worth of tax increases and spending reductions, including $109 billion in cuts to domestic and defense programs, will begin to kick in if Congress cannot decide how to replace them with less extreme deficit-reduction measures.

(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by David Storey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-spoke-house-speaker-boehner-others-fiscal-cliff-195112713--business.html

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Josh Hutcherson Talks Catching Fire

Filming on Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire has been underway for some time now, and Josh Hutcherson has taken time out to give an update on how things are progressing.

?They actually built a cornucopia in Atlanta that we shot at, and it looks amazing,? says Hutcherson. ?The way that the spokes got out, and the way everyone comes up on the pedestals and the water? it looks incredible. I?ve seen some of the CG renderings that Francis [Lawrence] has worked on, and they look really, really great.?

Continuing the visual theme, he also dropped a few tidbits regarding the use of IMAX cameras, outlining which parts of the story will employ the technology.

?All the stuff in the arena is going to be IMAX,? says the star. ?So when you go see it in IMAX, you?ll see the regular movie when we?re in the Districts and in the Capitol. When you see us go up in the pod in the games, it will open up into IMAX. It will be amazing. It?s very cool.?

Directed by Francis Lawrence and co-starring Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth and Donald Sutherland, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire will open in the UK on 22 November 2013.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1926335/news/1926335/

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