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(Reuters)

Low thyroid activity, one of the most treated conditions in the United States, may actually be a sign of longevity, researchers reported on Friday.

While they said it was far too soon for people taking thyroid pills to stop, they will be looking to see if the thyroid may hold the key to a long life, at least for some people.

Dr. Martin Surks and colleagues at the Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York studied hundreds of people who had lived to be 100, and found evidence that people with low thyroid activity were more likely to be in that group.

“We studied a large group of Ashkenazi Jews with exceptional longevity,” Surks told a news conference at a meeting of the Endocrine Society, specialists in human hormones.

They used a large national survey of health to see what the average hormone levels are for people of various ages.

The thyroid, located in the neck, is a kind of master gland, secreting hormones that affect metabolism. Doctors usually check its activity by an indirect measure—looking at levels of TSH, or thyroid stimulating hormone.

High TSH levels suggest the thyroid is underactive, a condition known as hypothyroidism. Low levels suggest it is overactive, known as hyperthyroidism.

People with low thyroid function may lose hair, gain weight and feel sluggish, while those with overactive thyroids may lose weight, feel their hearts race and have trembling hands. Both can be easily treated with a daily pill.

Surks and colleagues found 15 to 20 percent of people over the age of 60 had TSH levels that suggest an underactive thyroid gland. He told the meeting he believed that may be normal for older people and may in fact be a sign of longevity.

“We estimate that 70 percent of old people whose TSH was minimally elevated and who were considered to have hypothyroidism were actually in their age-specific limits,” Surks said in a telephone interview.

Old Age
They singled out 200 Jews who had lived to be 100, and 400 of their children. Two genetic changes were linked with low thyroid function but also with extreme old age.

Metabolic rate affects life span in animals. For instance, elephants have slow metabolic rates, slow heartbeats, and can live for decades, as opposed to mice, which have fast metabolisms and live for just months.

It may be, Surks said, that people with low thyroid function in old age were “elephants” with a slow metabolism who can live longer, as compared to ‘mice” with fast metabolic rates who may have shorter natural life spans.

“If you are an older person with high TSH, this suggests you are on the road to a long life,” Surks said.

What worries him is that millions of people in the United States are being treated for hypothyroidism. “In North America, thyroid hormone is used at the drop of a hat,” he said.

His group is seeking to see if that might interfere with a person’s natural life span.
Khaleej Times for more

By B. R. GOWANI

It would be utterly insane to predict how long it will take for the Pakistan military to totally recapture the Swat valley (and other areas) that were lost because of it’s inaction against the Taliban in a timely manner.

The news media, however, keep giving assurances that the military is winning the war. Citing the United States officials, the New York Times says dozens of Al Qaeda fighters and some of their leaders are relocating to Somalia and Yemen.

Nevertheless, the recent incident of terrorism in Pakistan: the bomb explosion at Peshawar’s Pearl Continental Hotel and the killings of the leading Sunni cleric Dr. Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi and five others in Lahore today by a suicide bomber are indicators that Pakistan could likely turn into Algeria of the 1990s or the Iraq of mid 2000s.

The Associated Press survey conducted on three dozen Pakistanis showed the natives are turning against the militants. They cite the video of the woman being flogged by the Taleban, as the reason for the change in people’s attitudes.

One may hope this is so! However, it is doubtful that decades of systematic poisoning of people’s minds in the name of Islam by the rulers, military, and later the Taleban can so swiftly be erased. Also, the views expressed by three dozen people, in a country with a population of over 170,000,000, does not carry much weight.

Anyway, the urgency now is for a solution that could bring about lasting change in people’s thinking and also create an environment for peaceful existence with its neighbors.

Many of Pakistan’s governments have not been generous or perceptive enough to respect its highly educated citizens or expatriates in a manner to reflect their value and education. Nor have they been sensible enough to tap their knowledge and put it to good use. Professor Abdus Salam, the only Pakistani to win Nobel Prize was shunned because he belonged to the Ahmadiyya community (declared non-Muslims* in 1974).

Another Pakistani of eminence was Eqbal Ahmad, a very insightful analyst, who was in Professor Edward Said’s words: perhaps the shrewdest and most original anti-imperialist analyst of Asia and Africa. He tried long and hard to establish his dream project of Khaldunia University in Pakistan. He died trying to realize his dream amidst numerous small successes and reversals. While many educated people expressed their willingness to quit their high paying jobs to work for Khaldunia and finally being granted the land for the University by the Harvard/Oxford educated Benazir Bhutto’s government, the project was killed when the land was seized by her husband Asif Ali Zardari, the current president.

One lesson that has been clearly emerged from the mess in Pakistan is that religion should not be allowed to play any role in politics and the running of the country. The other clear essential observation is the dire need for high quality secular education.

Given this situation, the government should establish two liberal arts universities in the territory recaptured from the militants:

i. Khaldunia University to posthumously acknowledge and realize Eqbal Ahmad’s dream,
ii. South Asia University that would reveal Pakistan’s South Asian roots and common bonds instead of the current touted connection to West Asia (or Middle East as it is commonly known.)

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

*While President General Zia-ul-Haq (1977-1988) was one of the cruelest ruler in Pakistan’s history, it was the Oxford/Berkeley educated atheist Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (1971-1977), Benazir’s father, who under pressure from Islamists declared Ahmadis as non-Muslims, and not Zia as the Wikipedia entry on Abdus Salam states; it confuses Zia’s Ordinance XX with Bhutto’s declaration.
Zia was also a very sharp diplomat. He honored Professor Salam but did not utilize his expertise. In case of the Ismailis, a Muslim minority, Zia received their Paris-based religious leader, the Aga Khan, very humbly for his greedy motives. His demeanor with their leader impressed many Ismailis, who yet remember Zia fondly. Zia, however, was aware of the tremendous investment by the Aga Khan: his charities, schools, clinics, world class medical university and hospital in Pakistan which benefits many Pakistanis.

By ANNA MALPAS (The Moscow Times)

Vladimir Filonov / MT
Boys giggling at a shop window lined with mannequins on Tverskaya Ulitsa. Schools must start offering sex education under the European Social Charter.

Russia has one of the world’s highest rates of HIV infection among young people. At the same time, schools are teaching students that sexually transmitted diseases are caused by a “frivolous lifestyle,” and textbooks fail to mention the word “condom.”

“There is no sex education in the modern sense in Russia,” said Alexei Bobrik, deputy director of the Open Health Institute, an NGO that runs HIV education programs. “Not a single government-approved textbook uses the word ‘condom.'”

The lack of modern sex education in Russian schools may have to change after Russia signed up to the European Social Charter on May 20.

Among the provisions of the charter, Russia ratified an article on the “right to protection of health.” A fact sheet issued by the European Social Charter in March explains that health education at schools should be a priority and include sex education.

The article “can be interpreted in different ways,” said Vladimir Nasonkin, co-chairman of the Federal Center for Education Legislation. “Different interpretations and commentaries may be taken into consideration when the charter’s provisions are implemented but may not be.”

At the moment, lawmakers are working on a new standard of state-school education in Russia that may include the provisions of the European Social Charter, Nasonkin said.

But experts are skeptical that schools will embrace a European-style approach, complete with contraceptive advice and frank discussion of changes during puberty.

“I think we’ll move in the same direction as other European countries, but our starting point is different, so it will take longer,” Bobrik said, blaming the “outdated system of school education.”

“A good idea can turn into a very mediocre result. I think it could turn into some one-off sessions on sex education,” said Alexandra Kareva, a project coordinator at Project Hope, an NGO that produces sex-education textbooks and trains teachers in Russia.

Sex education faces widespread opposition from religious and conservative groups.

A conservative organization called the Parents’ Committee has petitioned Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill to stop this provision of the European Social Charter from being implemented, calling sex education “a looming evil.”

Lyubov Kachesova, one of the movement’s leaders, told The Moscow Times that parents and members of various organizations had sent letters to the head of the State Duma factions and to two ministries, the Health and Social Development Ministry and the Education and Science Ministry. “Parents didn’t receive a single answer that really answered their questions,” she complained.

Kachesova said campaigners are “practically sure” that sex education lessons will be introduced.

She criticized existing programs, which she said are imported by private Russian organizations from the West. “In Russian, they sound primitive, ridiculous and sometimes downright illegal. When parents find out their content, they experience shock and disgust,” she said, adding that she began protesting against the lessons when her own children were in school.

One of the supporters against the sex-education movement is psychologist Irina Medvedeva. “If it is made law, there will be acts of civil disobedience,” she warned. “We consider that sex education of children is harmful in all senses.”

Sex education “destroys the romantic view of love,” she said. “The feeling of mutual attraction goes cold before children reach adulthood.”

Moscow Times for more

By DEREK FLOOD (Huffington Post)

Late Tuesday night another one of the Hashwani family’s hotels was demolished in a well-planned and executed suicide attack in Peshawar, Pakistan. The Pearl Continental (PC) Hotel chain is owned by perhaps Pakistan’s most prominent Ismaili family, the Hashwanis. Major cooperations in Pakistan, when not wholly owned subsidiaries of the Pakistani Army, are most often familial enterprises such as the Hashwani’s Hashoo Group. The Hashwanis had been in talks with the U.S. government to sell it the PC Peshawar property to be used as its new consular offices in light of war-torn North West Frontier Province’s ever growing importance in U.S. foreign policy. There are rumors that the Hashwani’s were or are considering getting out of the hospitality industry altogether. Last year’s Islamabad Marriott bombing was devastating to the family’s investment portfolio though its patriarch, Saddaruddin Hashwani, issued a defiant statement to the press that he would rebuild the Islamabad Marriott and would not bow to terrorist intimidation.

While covering the Pakistani elections last year, I often worked out of the PC Lahore’s business centre and devoured some incredible international fare at the hotel’s excellent restaurant after long days trudging up and down Mall Road looking for stories. Even if I could have afforded to stay there, I wouldn’t have because of its obviousness as a high-value target in the wave of jihadist violence that had already engulfed the country by mid-2007. Partly for my safety, I stayed at a low profile guest house down the road. Sadly, it doesn’t help that the 5-star hotels in Pakistan are owned by a group of Ismailis, a branch of Shi’ism that holds the Aga Khan in highest esteem as living imam, when considering the militants takfiri ideology. The Sunni extremists that claim to adhere to takfirism believe that individuals may declare those who follow different strains of Islam apostates and can therefore justify acts of previously imaginable terror throughout South Asia and the Middle East. Takfirism is essential in creating a sense of the “Other” in the militant mind which is used to justify attacks against those praying in mosques and eating in hotel dining rooms. Shia Muslims whether the traditional Twelvers or the lesser known Ismaili Seveners are some of the Takfiri militants favored targets.

Undoubtedly, the reasoning behind the attack will be attributed to either the PC’s international clientele or its possible sale to the Americans. The Ismailis as a cultural subset are extraordinarily successful business people with Shah Karim al-Hussayni, the Aga Khan, chief among them. The Aga Khan and the Hashwanis represent immense wealth in a region wracked by poverty and illiteracy-related militancy. They both provide relatively large investment opportunities and job creation that have become a target of nihilist militants who’s ideology has become somehow even more vile.

When I was working in Afghanistan last year, the Afghan Taleban targeted the telecom company Roshan’s mobile phone transmission towers in the southern provinces after having previously attacked the Aga Khan’s Serena hotel in Kabul. The Taleban issued a communique stating they wanted the towers shut down at night because they believed their movements could be tracked by coalition forces and the mobile signals emitted from their phones were being used to target them. Ismaili business interests seemed to be under sustained assault. His charitable work, which often focuses on his Ismaili minority, is underwritten by the for profit arm of his empire with the luxurious Serena chain as its face. Now again, the Taleban’s attacks on the Roshan towers and the Serena were very likely of a purely strategic nature but the fact that the towers are owned by the Aga Khan (and his European consortium partners) doesn’t exactly help. A major segment of the Aga Khan’s charitable work is aiding remote Ismaili communities in Central and South Asia who the Taleban consider to be apostates similar to the Twelver Shia Hazaras they attempted to annihilate in central and northern Afghanistan in the 1990’s.
Huffington Post for more

(Prison Radio)

Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning journalist who chronicles the human condition. He has been a resident of Pennsylvania’s death row for twenty-five years. Writing from his solitary confinement cell his essays have reached a worldwide audience. His books “Live From Death Row”, “Death Blossoms”, “All Things Censored”, “Faith of Our Fathers” and the recently released “We Want Freedom” have sold over 150,000 copies and been translated into nine languages. His 1982-murder trial and subsequent conviction have been the subject of great debate.

Prison Radio for more

(Global Witness)

Cambodia – one of the world’s poorest countries – could eventually earn enough from its oil, gas and minerals to become independent of foreign development aid. This report, Country for Sale, exposes for the first time how this future is being jeopardised by high level corruption and nepotism in the allocation and management of these critical public assets.

Country for Sale details how rights to exploit oil and mineral resources have been allocated behind closed doors by a small number of powerbrokers surrounding the prime minister and other senior officials. The beneficiaries of many of these deals are members of the ruling elite or their family members. Meanwhile, millions of dollars paid by oil and mining companies to secure access to these resources appear to be missing from the national accounts.
In the course of its investigation into Cambodia’s oil, gas and mining sectors, Global Witness obtained a number of key documents. Global Witness believes that it is important that these documents, which include key regulations for the extractive industries are easily available in the public domain.

Global Witness for more

By DON FITZ (Links)

With millions of jobs lost during the first part of 2009, who is calling for a shorter work week to spread the work around? Not the Republicans. Not even the Democrats. But why is there nary a peep from unions?

In the US, the vehicle industry sets the pace for organised labour. The only discussion at the top levels of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) is how quickly the gains won during the last 50 years can be given back. Does the UAW have no memory of the 1930s and 1940s when a shorter work week was at centre of organising demands?

The gross domestic product is plummeting at the same time that jobs are disappearing. Why should there be any connection between the two? If society produces 10% less, why don’t we all just work 10% less? Didn’t things work like that for hundreds of thousands of years of human existence? When people figured out easier ways to get what they needed, they spent less time doing it.

It’s called “leisure”. Leisure is essential for a democratic society involving people in all aspects of self-government. Instead of working frenetically to produce “stuff” that we don’t have the time to enjoy, wouldn’t we be better off with less “stuff” and more time of our own? Research repeatedly shows that, once important needs are met, additional belongings bring no additional happiness.[1] Yet work is strongly related to stress.[2]

A labour-environment connection?
It’s more than stress to the human nervous system. Manufacturing too much stuff stresses every aspect of the environment. The voracious appetite of corporate growth destroys homes of the wolf and bear in North America. Swiftly disappearing are the last refuges of chimpanzees in Africa and orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra. Mangrove forests give way to beach resorts as long-line fishing kills 100 sea animals for every fish eaten by a human.

Vastly more creatures fall prey to the 80,000–100,000 chemicals spewed into the air, water and land. Countless molecules of chlorine and fluorine go into pesticides and plastics that destroy immune and reproductive systems. Elemental structures of lead, mercury and, of course, radioactive particles are an enemy to living systems.
The most frequent building block of toxins is oil. With more than 40 hours of labour contained in each gallon, oil is the closest thing to free energy that humanity has ever discovered.[3] A substance that should be used sparingly so that many future generations could use if for medical and other essential products, oil is being squandered at an exponential rate by a corporate culture determined that its descendants will despise it.

The only way that corporate America knows to shield itself from loathing by its progeny is working overtime to prevent those generations from existing. As climate change changes from “if/when” to “How rapidly is it increasing?” corporations befuddle our senses with a dazzling array of green gadgets, each of which pumps more CO2 into the atmosphere during its manufacture and distribution.
Nevertheless, corporate media propagandises non-stop that we must be unhappy from the economic downturn and pray for a quick return to the normal rate of planetary extermination. So it’s time to ask why another set of voices is not demanding a shorter work week. Why do the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Federation and a host of other Washington lobby groups fail to point out that an economic slowdown with a fair distribution of jobs would be the treatment of choice for a sick environment?

Links for more
Via Indus Asia Online Journal

“This video was made in the Antwerp, Belgium Central (Train) Station on the 23rd of March 2009 … with no warning to the passengers passing through the station.

At 08:00 am a recording of Julie Andrews singing ‘Do, Re, Mi’ begins to play on the public address system.

“It was a promotion stunt for a Belgian television program, where they were looking for someone to play the lead role in the musical of ‘The Sound of Music’.

“As the bemused passengers watch in amazement, some 200 dancers begin to appear from the crowd and station entrances.”

(Biology News)

It turns out that from the perspective of cell biology, Nietzsche may have been right after all: that which does not kill us does make us stronger. In a review article published in the June 2009 print issue of The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), scientists from the Mayo Clinic explain how cell receptors (called “death receptors”) used by the body to shut down old, diseased, or otherwise unwanted cells (called “apoptosis”) may also be used to make cells heartier when facing a wide range of illnesses, from liver disease to cancer.

“Increasing our knowledge of how death receptors function will allow us to develop better and more effective therapies for several human diseases,” said Gregory J. Gores, M.D., Chair of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and one of the scientists involved in the work.

In their article, Gores and his colleague, Maria Guicciardi, also from the Mayo Clinic, described the various molecular pathways activated by death receptors and the proteins involved in the process. Specifically, they looked at how these proteins interact with each other and how they redistribute within a cell. Death receptors are an essential tool for the immune system to eliminate cells that have been overtaken by viruses, undergone potentially harmful genetic modifications, or have become too old to function properly.

Understanding the exact sequence of events that occurs after death receptors are activated, including identifying key proteins involved in the processes, may allow researchers to develop entirely new therapeutics. These therapeutics not only would give doctors the ability to choose when and if certain cells are taken out of service, but they would also give doctors the ability to trigger cells to shift into “survival mode.”

Biology News for more