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The U.N. health agency says it is investigating a mystery disease that killed three people in the South African city of Johannesburg. The World Health Organization says the disease appears to be a form of hemorrhagic fever. It says tests have proved negative for Ebola, Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, Marburg fever and other main types of hemorrhagic fever. WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl says the first death on Sept. 13 was a tour guide who had fallen ill in Zambia before being evacuated to South Africa. Two further deaths on Sept. 30 and Oct. 4. involved a paramedic and a...

Obama's in a squeeze, shocked, he fears all our best And when Sarah hits home, she never lets ‘O’ rest 'Cause he's praying all night… and her views are all right… Obama's in a squeeze, shocked… Johnny’s gotta veep that fights! ...

Sometimes Diane Kruger rocks out in hats and jeans on the red carpet, but we are totally fascinated, when she wears beautiful gowns.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Major inequalities in health and life expectancy persist worldwide, according to an independent World Health Organization commission which on Thursday called for all countries to offer universal health care. Huge discrepancies also exist within countries, including Scotland where a boy born in the poor Glasgow suburb of Calton can expect to live to 54, 28 years less than one born in affluent Lenzie, just across town, it said. "The health inequities we see in the world are absolutely dramatic in their scale," Michael Marmot, a WHO health researcher, who chaired the commission, told reporters. "Between countries we...

Dhaka, Aug 24, 2008 / 09:54 pm (CNA).- Critics have charged a World Health Organization (WHO) initiative with providing the “menstrual regulation” abortion method in countries where abortion is otherwise illegal.Menstrual regulation, also known as "menstrual extraction," is used by women who missed their regular menstrual period and suspect that they are pregnant but cannot or do not want to wait for the results of a pregnancy test. If the woman is pregnant at the time the menstrual extraction is performed, an abortion results. The evidence of an abortion is either destroyed during the procedure or is easily disposed...

Openly gay political commentator Rachel Maddow, 35, is getting her own prime-time show on MSNBC, the cable news channel confirmed on Tuesday. "This just completes our prime-time lineup," MSNBC President Phil Griffin told the New York Times. Beginning Sept. 8, Maddow will replace commentator Dan Abrams in the 9 p.m. time slot. Her show will initially focus on the presidential race but will become more of a general news program after the election. "This is great," Maddow told the Times. "Getting a regular cable show is something I’ve wanted." Maddow will be the first out lesbian to host a prime-time...

WHO has been notified by the Government of the Netherlands of a case of Marburg haemorrhagic fever (MHF) in a Dutch tourist who visited Uganda. Marburg virus infection has been demonstrated by laboratory tests performed by the Bernhard Nocht Institute in Hamburg, Germany. The 40-year-old woman travelled in Uganda from 5-28 June, 2008, and entered caves on two occasions. The first cave was visited on 16 June at Fort Portal. No bats were seen in this cave. She was reportedly exposed to fruit bats during a visit to the “python cave” in the Maramagambo Forest between Queen Elisabeth Park and...

Track might wind up on 'Kon's upcoming third album. Akon wanted to be starting something with Michael Jackson — and apparently, that something involves holding hands. A song that the two worked on for Akon's upcoming album has leaked to the Internet, and it's called "Hold My Hand." An earlier version of the track, without Jackson's contributing vocals, leaked in February, just as the pair's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' 2008" was officially released as the first single for the re-release of Thriller. A mid-tempo ballad featuring strings at its beginning, "Hold My Hand" layers the singers' vocals over a drum...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States leads the world in rates of experimenting with marijuana and cocaine despite strict drug laws, World Health Organization researchers said on Tuesday. Countries with looser drug laws have lower rates of abuse, the researchers report in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine. The survey of 54,000 people in 17 countries found that 16 percent of people in the United States had used cocaine in their lifetimes -- far higher than the next highest rate, found in New Zealand, where 4.3 percent of people reported having used cocaine. More than 42 percent of...

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) may have one of the best-known faces in the world, but that doesn’t mean he is recognized everywhere, even in Washington. Washington Sports Club employee Takehia Wheeler was manning the front desk to scan members’ identification cards Friday morning when the presidential candidate walked in with his entourage. The gym opened a month ago in the Columbia Heights district. “He came in and walked past me,” Wheeler told In The Know. “I was like, ‘Sir, you need to come back.’ ” Wheeler said Obama looked familiar, but she didn’t recognize him. So she asked for his...

Executive Summary The United Nations is celebrating its 40th anniversary amid much hoopla and endless expressions of goodwill. Last month dozens of heads of state descended on New York for the opening of the 40th session of the General Assembly; scores more are expected for the official commemorative festivities the week of October 21. Despite widespread and withering criticism of the institution in recent years--in September Singapore's foreign minister, Suppiah Dhanabalan, told the General Assembly that the UN's prestige "is at an all time low"[1]--hope burns eternal. Austrian ambassador Thomas Klestil recently reaffirmed his nation's support for the international body:...

Actor calls soldiers 'wimps,' says they go into the Army to torture prisoners Apparently, the actor has now apologized:Rupert Everett apologises for calling soldiers 'wimps' "The whole point of being in the Army is wanting to get killed, wanting to test yourself to the limits. Now you have to fly 15,000ft above the war zone to avoid getting hit. I don't think there is any point in having wars if that's how you're going to behave. It's pathetic. All this whining!" He went on to say: "The whole point of being in the Army is going to war and getting...

"A quarter of a century after the outbreak of Aids, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has accepted that the threat of a global heterosexual pandemic has disappeared," reports the Independent, a leftist London daily: In the first official admission that the universal prevention strategy promoted by the major Aids organisations may have been misdirected, Kevin de Cock, the head of the WHO's department of HIV/Aids said there will be no generalised epidemic of Aids in the heterosexual population outside Africa. [Snip] Oh, well, never mind! Anyone old enough to remember the 1980s will recall that America was subjected to a...

The head of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department has officially admitted for the first time that there will be no global epidemic of the disease among the heterosexual population outside Africa, The Independent reported.Kevin de Cock said global prevention strategies to address AIDS as a risk to all populations, among the WHO and major AIDS organizations, may have been misdirected. It is now recognized that, with the exception of sub-Saharan African, it is confined to high-risk groups.These groups include men who have sex with other men, drug users who inject with needles, and sex workers and their clients,...

Actor Rupert Everett has criticised Americans in an interview with a TV listings magazine. He has described them as "whiny victims" whose entire language is taken from US TV series Friends and Sex And The City. "I'm totally off the States now. The reaction to 9/11 and then George Bush - really, they've got very blobby as a nation" - Rupert Everett Everett told the magazine: "I'm totally off the States now. The reaction to 9/11 and then George Bush - really, they've got very blobby as a nation.

Geneva, Switzerland (AHN) - The World Health Organization (WHO) wants all tobacco advertisements, promotions and sponsorships to be eliminated. WHO called for this ban on May 31st, the eve of World No Tobacco Day. This year's campaign is aiming at the multi-billion dollars spent by tobacco companies in attracting young people to patronize their products. Youngsters are conveyed with the idea that tobacco-use would add to their sex appeal, energy and glamour through advertisements. According to research, many tobacco advertisements subtly encourage them to start smoking. According to WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan, the tobacco industry replaces the consumers who...

HMOs Deconstructed by: Malcolm A. Kline, May 23, 2008 Government-run Medicare health coverage for the elderly is more efficient than private sector fee-for-service treatments, Hugh Waters of Johns Hopkins University argued earlier this month in a seminar held by the libertarian Cato Institute. “Medicare has lower administrative costs,” Waters told the audience at the symposium on Capitol Hill. He tallies the overhead at $127 per Medicare enrollee in 2003 compared to $421 per capita for the private sector equivalent. Additionally, Waters asserts, “Medicare has slower increases in costs.” Between 1970 and 2004, he estimates, costs went up 10.9 percent in...

Obese people are contributing to the world food crisis and climate change, experts say. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine calculated the obese consume 18% more calories than average. They are also responsible for using more fuel, which has an environmental impact and drives up food prices as transport and agriculture both use oil. The result is that the poor struggle to afford food and greenhouse gas emissions rise, the Lancet reported. It comes as the World Health Organization predicts the obese population will double by 2015 to 700m. In the UK, nearly a quarter of adults are...

LONDON (Reuters) - Food trade liberalization in developing countries can hurt attempts to alleviate poverty and damage the environment, according to a report from a United Nations and World Bank sponsored group issued on Tuesday. "Opening national markets to international competition can offer economic benefits but can lead to long term negative effects on poverty alleviation, food security and the environment without basic national institutions and infrastructure being place," the report said. Sixty governments, including Brazil, China, France and India, have approved the report. The U.S., Australia and Canada are due to submit reservations later this week while Britain have...

Today, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing on the implications of climate change for human health. Malaria will top the menu, but so will ignorance and disinformation.The lead witness will be Dr. Jonathan Patz of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has suggested that U.S. energy policy may be "indirectly exporting diseases to other parts of the world." Dr. Patz, the World Health Organization (WHO) and others claim that global warming is now spreading disease and may be the cause of some 160,000 deaths a year.In 2007, for example, WHO pointed to rising temperatures...

TRENTON -- Only days after deciding not to run for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, biotech millionaire John Crowley is reconsidering entering the primary. Crowley, 40, of Princeton, is reconsidering entering the race for the GOP nomination after receiving phone calls from several national and state Republican Party figures urging Crowley to jump in. Political adviser and close friend Bill Spadea confirmed Crowley is reconsidering. "John is tremendously impressed by the outpouring of support and encouragement that has come from his colleagues, his friends, and his family," said Spadea. "People of all political beliefs have come forward to offer...

The Bullying Pulpit by: Malcolm A. Kline, February 25, 2008 If you think that primary schools don’t spend enough time on education now, just wait. As a famous guy once said, “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” “To achieve a gender-safe school, I think we need to employ several simultaneous strategies to ensure that sexual harassment will not have a presence there,” Wellesley’s Nan Stein writes in Radical Teacher. “I suggest that we call this ‘zero indifference,’ rather than ‘zero tolerance,’ which would mean that we plan to notice the behaviors, comment on them, intervene, and make corrections accordingly.” Stein is...

Swiss change safe sex message on HIV By FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press WriterThu Jan 31, 8:10 PM ET Swiss AIDS experts said Thursday that some people with HIV who meet strict conditions and are under treatment can safely have unprotected sex with non-infected partners.The proposal astonished AIDS researchers in Europe and North America who have long argued that safe sex with a condom is the single most effective way of preventing the spread of the disease — apart from abstinence."Not only is (the Swiss proposal) dangerous, it's misleading and it is not considering the implications of the biological facts involved...

Mr. and Mrs. Russell Lewis Sheehan of Opelika announce the engagement of their daughter, Amy Lynn, to Charles Richard Moore III, son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Richard Moore, Jr., of Clanton. The wedding is planned for March 1 at Trinity United Methodist Church in Opelika. The bride-elect is the granddaughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. George Davis McCord of Goodwater and the late Mr. and Mrs. Russell Bender Sheehan of Montgomery. She is a graduate of Auburn University, with a Bachelor of Science in hotel and restaurant management and a Master of Science in nutrition and food science....

Senator John McCain soon will be singing a tune like one of my parakeets on YouTube. The tune is called Souija Boy.

January 4, 2008 Alan Keyes for President DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa Republican Party has neither counted nor reported the number of votes for Alan Keyes in the GOP caucuses held Jan. 3. "We didn't have the electronic means to record the tallies for Keyes, so we can't yet report to the public how many votes Keyes got," said John Lund at the Iowa GOP headquarters in Des Moines. "We can't report the Keyes votes until we've double-checked each individual paper ballot." Meanwhile, the Iowa GOP widely reported the vote tallies of all other candidates, including Tom Tancredo, who...

Alliance in Montco reflects party shift Republicans will share power. By Emilie Lounsberry Inquirer Staff Writer The surprise move by Republican Jim Matthews and Democrat Joe Hoeffel to share power as Montgomery County commissioners reflects a stunning reversal of fortune for the GOP. For decades, the county Republican Party enjoyed a reputation as an efficient and powerful political machine, demonstrated by its control of the courthouse for more than a century. But yesterday's bipartisan news conference showed that was no more - especially after Democrats won five of nine county row offices in November. Matthews will be chairman and Hoeffel...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A few days ago, hopes were high that a deal to end a costly five-week strike by thousands of Hollywood writers was imminent. But optimism that writers and producers would soon sign a new pact all but crumbled Friday, as talks broke down and the sides blamed each other for the stalled negotiations that have sidelined many prime-time and late-night TV shows. "We're puzzled and disheartened by an ongoing WGA (Writers Guild of America) negotiating strategy that seems designed to delay or derail talks rather than facilitate an end to this strike," the Alliance of Motion...

LONDON (AP) — Like UV rays and diesel exhaust fumes, working the graveyard shift will soon be listed as a "probable" cause of cancer. It is a surprising step validating a concept once considered wacky. And it is based on research that finds higher rates of breast and prostate cancer among women and men whose work day starts after dark. Next month, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the cancer arm of the World Health Organization, will add overnight shift work as a probable carcinogen. The higher cancer rates don't prove working overnight can cause cancer. There may...

The United Nations grossly overestimated both the scope and direction of AIDS infections, its scientists will admit later this week. The actual numbers in almost every theater have proven to be much less than UN reports indication, in some places less than half of that asserted. Outside researchers say that their demands for government funding motivated them to essentially lie about the gravity of the situation: The United Nations' top AIDS scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they have long overestimated both the size and the course of the epidemic, which they now believe has been slowing for nearly...

Does anyone know if America’s Greatest Patriot has formally distanced himself yet from any of the myriad kooks and cretins that have attached themselves to his hull? In this week alone we’ve been treated to a report that he’s the candidate of choice for Michigan militia types, an ad cooked up by supporters to reassure voters that the foul hand of Israel holds no sway over him, and now this grassroots promo for a Paul event on November 5 — Guy Fawkes Day, in memory of the man who tried to blow up Parliament — with imagery borrowed from “V...

LifeNews.com Note: Samantha Singson writes for the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a pro-life group that lobbies at the United Nation. This editorial originally appear in the group's Friday Fax publication. A new global initiative was launched by various UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in New York last week that includes a call for legal abortion. Among the sponsors of the initiative called "Deliver Now for Women and Children" is the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), a UN agency that persistently denies they support abortion in any way, shape, or form. Marketed as a campaign to raise awareness of...

UNICEF Among Sponsors of New Campaign Promoting Abortion US, Canadian government development agencies among participants in campaign By Samantha Singson NEW YORK, October 4, 2007 (C-FAM.org) - A new global initiative was launched by various UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in New York last week that includes a call for legal abortion. Among the sponsors of the initiative called "Deliver Now for Women and Children" is the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), a UN agency that persistently denies they support abortion in any way, shape, or form.  Marketed as a campaign to raise awareness of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)...

Nine cases of Ebola confirmed in DR Congo region KINSHASA (AFP) — Nine cases of Ebola virus have been confirmed in the West Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo that is at the epicentre of an outbreak that has killed at least 174 people, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official said Friday. "We have now nine cases of Ebola haemorrhagic fever confirmed in the laboratory, five cases of typhoid and one case of Shigella," WHO spokeswoman in DR Congo Cristiana Silvi told AFP. Symptoms of the epidemic -- high temperature, bloody diarrhoea, visible hemorrhaging -- were first seen...

(LONDON) - Eating less meat could help slow global warming by reducing the number of livestock and thereby decreasing the amount of methane flatulence from the animals, scientists said on Thursday. In a special energy and health series of the medical journal The Lancet, experts said people should eat fewer steaks and hamburgers. Reducing global red meat consumption by 10 percent, they said, would cut the gases emitted by cows, sheep and goats that contribute to global warming. "We are at a significant tipping point," said Geri Brewster, a nutritionist at Northern Westchester Hospital in New York, who was not...

It's now leaking out that there was more going on than met the eye at the Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit in Montebello, Canada, in August. The three amigos - President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon - finalized and released the "North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza." The "Plan" - that's what they call it, with a capital P - is to use the excuse of a major flu epidemic to shift powers from U.S. legislatures to unelected, unaccountable "North American" bureaucrats. This idea was launched on Sept. 14, 2005,...

The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America summit in Canada released a plan that established U.N. law along with regulations by the World Trade Organization and World Health Organization as supreme over U.S. law and set the stage for militarizing the management of continental health emergencies. The "North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza" was finalized at the SPP summit last week in Montebello, Quebec. At the same time, the U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, has created a webpage dedicated to avian flu and has been running exercises in preparation for the possible use of U.S. military forces...

The New York Times recently declared "the disturbing truth ... that ... the United States is a laggard not a leader in providing good medical care." As usual, the Times editors get it wrong. They find evidence in a 2000 World Health Organization (WHO) rating of 191 nations and a Commonwealth Fund study of wealthy nations published last May. In the WHO rankings, the United States finished 37th, behind nations like Morocco, Cyprus and Costa Rica. Finishing first and second were France and Italy. Michael Moore makes much of this in his movie "Sicko." The Commonwealth Fund looked at Australia,...

Keith Olberman had O'Rielly as the first person on his "worst person in the world" segment he does. He actually mentioned that in order to dig himself out of the hole he dug with the dailykos thing, he attacked FreeRepublic for things like one poster saying that Hillary should be assassinated, and the fact that FreeRepublic does't have paid moderators. Olberman mentioned at the end that Threats against Hillarys life have been made on O'Riellys site and that O'Rielly doesn't have paid moderators either. At the end of the segment Olberman said "see, he'll throw you under the buss too,"...

I just got an e-mail from a friend who has a friend (so take this with a grain) that works at Boston Medical. She said the friend told her that Tedy Bruschi has died. Anyone else hear anything about this?

The United Nations' Cash for Kim Jong Il scandal is now six months old, so it's a good time to assess progress, if that's the right word. The evidence of misdeeds at the U.N. Development Program in North Korea continues to mount, but there's still no "urgent" and "external" inquiry, as ordered by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in January. Now the U.S. has uncovered evidence that in addition to transferring millions of dollars in cash that may have gone to help prop up Kim's grotesque regime, the UNDP also transferred dual-use technology. It did so without bothering to secure a U.S....

GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The U.N. health agency on Tuesday issued its strongest policy recommendations yet for controlling tobacco use, urging all countries to ban smoking at indoor workplaces and in public buildings. "The evidence is clear. There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke," said Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization. Tobacco use is the world's leading cause of preventable death, accounting for 10 percent of adult fatalities, according to WHO. It is responsible for 5.4 million deaths each year, a figure that is expected to rise to 8.3 million by 2030, the...

I need no outside reference for right and wrong, I know right from wrong, and Rudy just may as well Kiss My Ass! Hell, if Rudy had shown up claiming to be a child of my daddies loins, I reckon that daddie would have reconsidered abortion! Best damn thing I can suggest for Rudy is to grab as much of his money as he can, and haul ass with it!

WHO's Director of Research Policy Dr. Tikki Pang said that some of his WHO colleagues were shocked by The Lancet's study, which found that the WHO is neglecting key evidence in its research, but he acknowledged the criticism had merit, and explained that time pressures and a lack of both information and money sometimes compromised WHO work. When developing "evidence-based" guidelines, the World Health Organization routinely forgets one key ingredient: evidence. That is the verdict from a study published in The Lancet online Tuesday. The medical journal's criticism of WHO could shock many in the global health community, as...

Patents are only worth the paper they're printed on unless governments protect them. So when Thailand browbeat Abbott Laboratories into dropping its prices for an HIV/AIDS drug last month by threatening to break its patent -- with nearly no international repercussions -- we were alarmed. Now there's reason to be downright worried. On Friday Brazil declared it would seize the patent for Merck's HIV/AIDS drug, efavirenz. It's the first time Brazil has seized a patent, and it's a slap in the face of the World Trade Organization and the market system for drug innovation. WTO rules allow countries to seize...

Story told in a nursing class, to lighten the mood. One day,the body parts were conversing about their status for importance. The heart proclaimed, "well, I'm most important. I pump the blood through the veins in order to furnish the body with vital nutrients and necessary air and oxygen." The lungs took a clue from this and announced; "well, I do all of the work of bringing the necessary air and oxygen into the body so I am the most important." The brain said; "I, am the most important. All of you are dependent on my guidance and direction, like...

If the tax forms you're filing this year show Uncle Sam entitled to any income tax, you increasingly stand alone. The income tax system is so bad, and increasingly reliant on a shrinking number of Americans to pay the nation's bills, that 40% of the country's households -- more than 44 million adults -- pay no income taxes at all. Not a penny. Think of it this way. After dropping off your tax forms at the Post Office, you find 100 people standing on the sidewalk. Forty of them will be excused from paying income taxes thanks to Congress. Twenty...

The latest incarnation of the iconic British series Doctor Who has been renewed for a fourth season, the BBC announced. At a special preview screening of the first two episodes of season three on March 21 in London, executive producer Russell T. Davies said that he has known about the renewal for a while, but hasn't been allowed to comment on it until now. "Series four is officially existing," Davies told BBC News. "I'm very excited, but we have known for ages." It was also confirmed at the event that John Simm, who plays time-traveling cop Sam Tyler in the...

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