The obesity problem among young people is so bad that the present generation of parents may be the “first to bury our children”, Department of Health secretary-general Ambrose McLoughlin has said.
He told an Irish Heart Foundation conference today that the State had to move away from treatment and towards prevention, adding that tackling obesity was now a “public health priority”.
“If we don’t deal with [obesity], we will be the first generation to bury our children,” he said…
Obesity crisis so severe parents face ‘burying’ their children – Health News | Irish Medical News | The Irish Times – Mon, Jun 23, 2014
June 25, 2014
Uncategorized Early Education, Education, obesity, People & Society, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment
17 aid workers abducted in Sudans Darfur region
June 24, 2014
African Center for Strategic Studies Conflict, Darfur, International Security, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment
17 aid workers abducted in Sudans Darfur region.
Seventeen aid workers have been abducted in the Sudanese troubled Darfur region, sources said.
Irish NGO GOAL and local SAK reported that the abduction took place on Thursday.
They said three GOAL employees and 14 members of the Sudanese SAK were abducted in Kutum, North Darfur.
The sources said the three Goal employees included the country director.
The SAK members included the head of the Kutum branch and an engineer.
“Militiamen in three Land Cruisers stopped the GOAL country director and two staff members who were on their way to Kutum airport. They pulled them from their vehicle at gunpoint and took them to an unknown destination,” the sources, who asked not to be named because they are not authorised to talk to the media, told the Africa Review.
“At about the same time, gunmen in Land Cruisers abducted 14 employees of the Sudanese SAK organisation, in the Um Lyon in Kutum locality,” they added…
On Iraq, Echoes of 2003 – NYTimes.com
June 19, 2014
International Security Conflict, ISIS, Peace & Security, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey 1 Comment
On Iraq, Echoes of 2003 – NYTimes.com.
Is this 2014 or 2003?
I’m flinching at a painful sense of déjà vu as we hear calls for military intervention in Iraq, as President Obama himself — taunted by critics who contend he’s weak — is said to be considering drone strikes there.
Our 2003 invasion of Iraq should be a warning that military force sometimes transforms a genuine problem into something worse. The war claimed 4,500 American lives and, according to a mortality study published in a peer-reviewed American journal, 500,000 Iraqi lives. Linda Bilmes, a Harvard expert in public finance, tells me that her latest estimate is that the total cost to the United States of the Iraq war will be $4 trillion.
That’s a $35,000 tax on the average American household. The total would be enough to ensure that all children could attend preschool in the United States, that most people with AIDS worldwide could receive treatment, and that every child worldwide could attend school — for the next 83 years. Instead, we financed a futile war that was like a Mobius strip, bringing us right back to an echo of where we started.
‘Africa Rising’? Not really, unless we invest more in girls – CNN.com
June 18, 2014
Education Africa, Education, Gambia, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment
‘Africa Rising’? Not really, unless we invest more in girls – CNN.com.
What factor has the power to transform individual lives, communities, nations and the world?
The answer to this complex question is a simple one: education. While it is widely accepted that there is no one solution to lift the millions across our globe out of poverty, it is also equally accepted that a key cornerstone of addressing some of the world’s most pressing challenges is through providing a quality education to all children, especially girls…
A Helicopter of One’s Own – NYTimes.com
June 18, 2014
Aviation Aviation, Helicopter, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey, Pilot, Research Leave a comment
A Helicopter of One’s Own – NYTimes.com.
If we had our own personal mini-helicopters that were almost as easy to fly as cars are to drive, and we could take off from our backyards, soar over the traffic and peer down at the earthbound masses, trudging along below.
That would be cool.
As it turns out, the European Union is making plans for that very thing. Six research institutions across Europe are studying the feasibility of small commuter helicopters, helped along by a $4.7 million grant from the European government in a project dubbed “MyCopter.”..
No Money, No Time – NYTimes.com
June 15, 2014
Uncategorized Africa, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey, Proverty, Research Leave a comment
No Money, No Time – NYTimes.com.
THE absurdity of having had to ask for an extension to write this article isn’t lost on me: It is, after all, a piece on time and poverty, or, rather, time poverty — about what happens when we find ourselves working against the clock to finish something. In the case of someone who isn’t otherwise poor, poverty of time is an unpleasant inconvenience. But for someone whose lack of time is just one of many pressing concerns, the effects compound quickly.
We make a mistake when we look at poverty as simply a question of financial constraint. Take what happened with my request for an extension. It was granted, and the immediate time pressure was relieved. But even though I met the new deadline (barely), I’m still struggling to dig myself out from the rest of the work that accumulated in the meantime. New deadlines that are about to whoosh by, a growing list of ignored errands, a rent check and insurance payment that I just realized I haven’t mailed. And no sign of that promised light at the end of the tunnel.
My experience is the time equivalent of a high-interest loan cycle, except instead of money, I borrow time. But this kind of borrowing comes with an interest rate of its own:..
Michael Moore – So today, Mosul fell. Mosul is the second…
June 11, 2014
International Security International Security, Iraq, ISIS, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey 1 Comment
Michael Moore – So today, Mosul fell. Mosul is the second….
So today, Mosul fell. Mosul is the second largest city in Iraq. The Iraqi government we “installed”, has now lost Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul and other large swaths of the country we invaded at the cost of thousands of American lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and a couple trillion dollars. (What could your school district do with a trillion dollars?).
One more maddening day in this 11-year illegal, immoral, greedy and stupid war. Today in Mosul, that Iraqi Army YOU pay for, freaked out, threw down their guns, and literally RAN away. I have friends and acquaintances who lost sons in all three of those cities. I can only imagine what they’re feeling tonight. FOR WHAT? FOR WHAT! I am so sorry we couldn’t do anything to stop this when it started. A few million of us tried. Last week, Richard Clarke, Bush’s former head of counter-terrorism, said he now believes that his fellow members of the Bush administration committed “war crimes.” …
What Causes Weight Gain – NYTimes.com
June 11, 2014
Health Health, obesity, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey, Research 2 Comments
What Causes Weight Gain – NYTimes.com.
If I ask you what constitutes “bad” eating, the kind that leads to obesity and a variety of connected diseases, you’re likely to answer, “Salt, fat and sugar.” This trilogy of evil has been drilled into us for decades, yet that’s not an adequate answer.
We don’t know everything about the dietary links to chronic disease, but the best-qualified people argue that real food is more likely to promote health and less likely to cause disease than hyperprocessed food. And we can further refine that message: Minimally processed plants should dominate our diets. (This isn’t just me saying this; the Institute of Medicine and the Department of Agriculture agree.)
And yet we’re in the middle of a public health emergency that isn’t being taken seriously enough. We should make it a national priority to create two new programs, a research program to determine precisely what causes diet-related chronic illnesses (on top of the list is “Just how bad is sugar?”), and a program that will get this single, simple message across: Eat Real Food…
Peter "Just Loves Flying" 
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