Monday, May 10, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Meet the 92 year-old teacher finally calling it a day
Meet the 92 year-old teacher finally calling it a day
Almost seventy years ago, a young British army officer arrived in the Indian subcontinent ready for adventure. He never left.
Major Geoffrey Langlands was present at the birth of Pakistan in 1947 and has spent more than half a century teaching there. Now he is looking for a successor to take over his mountain school in the Chitral Valley in northern Pakistan.
Orla Guerin went to meet him.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Lieberman On Revoking Terrorists' Citizenship: 'American Citizenship Is A Privilege, Not A Right'
Has he heard of the constitution? Did he not swear, in his oath of office, to protect it?
To take someone's citizenship away, before a conviction, or even after a conviction, is unconstitutional and unjust. It fails every litmus test out there, and yet he supports it?
Al Jazeera English begins broadcasts in Canada
Al Jazeera English begins broadcasts in Canada
by John Parnell on May 5, 2010
Al Jazeera English (AJE) began broadcasting in Canada on Wednesday. The network has also revealed its plans to open a bureau in Toronto. The channel is available via three cable TV operators in the country.
Negotiations for carriage in North America have been arduous with US services finally commencing last summer.
“We are extremely pleased that AJE’s groundbreaking news and programming is now available in Canada,” said Tony Burman, managing director, Al Jazeera English.
“Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to travel throughout Canada and hear first-hand the great demand for the channel. I believe that our cutting-edge reporting and programming will fill an important void by bringing another voice in international news to this important market,” added Burman.
Burman also revealed the opening of a bureau in Toronto to be staffed by Canadian-born journalist Imtiaz Tyab and producer jet Belgraver.
The Arabic-language service was granted carriage in Canada previously with the condition that cable service operators edit out scenes of violence and other sensitive content. The carriers baulked at the demand with most opting not to run the channel rather than incur the expense of editing. The AJE deal is understood to carry no such conditions.
Despite maintaining a base of operations in Washington, 24-hour carriage in the US market has proved elusive for AJE, which launched in 2006 and is available in more than 100 countries.
Lack of sleep 'linked to early death'
Lack of sleep 'linked to early death'
 Not too little sleep, yet not too much, the experts advise |
Getting less than six hours sleep a night can lead to an early grave, UK and Italian researchers have warned.
They said people regularly having such little sleep were 12% more likely to die over a 25-year period than those who got an "ideal" six to eight hours.
They also found an association between sleeping for more than nine hours and early death, although that much sleep may merely be a marker of ill health.
Sleep journal reports the findings, based on 1.5m people in 16 studies.
The study looked at the relationship between sleep and mortality by reviewing earlier studies from the UK, US and European and East Asian countries.
Premature death from all causes was linked to getting either too little or too much sleep outside of the "ideal" six to eight hours per night.
But while a lack of sleep may be a direct cause of ill health, ultimately leading to an earlier death, too much sleep may merely be a marker of ill health already, the UK and Italian researchers believe.
Time pressures
Professor Francesco Cappuccio, leader of the Sleep, Health and Society Programme at the UK's University of Warwick, said: "Modern society has seen a gradual reduction in the average amount of sleep people take and this pattern is more common amongst full-time workers, suggesting that it may be due to societal pressures for longer working hours and more shift-work.
"On the other hand, the deterioration of our health status is often accompanied by an extension of our sleeping time."
 |  Five hours is insufficient for most people  Sleep expert Professor Jim Horne |
If the link between a lack of sleep and death is truly causal, it would equate to over 6.3 million attributable deaths in the UK in people over 16 years of age.
Prof Cappuccio said more work was needed to understand exactly why sleep seemed to be so important for good health.
Professor Jim Horne, of the Loughborough Sleep Research Centre, said other factors may be involved rather than sleep per se.
"Sleep is just a litmus paper to physical and mental health. Sleep is affected by many diseases and conditions, including depression," he said.
And getting improved sleep may not make someone better or live longer, he said.
"But having less than five hours a night suggests something is probably not right.
"Five hours is insufficient for most people and being drowsy in the day increases your risk of having an accident if driving or operating dangerous machinery."
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