Page last updated at 21:55 GMT, Friday, 16 January 2009

NY mayor hails 'hero' crash pilot

The plane's crew and rescue teams averted a tragedy, the mayor said

New York's mayor has hailed the pilot of a plane which crashed in the Hudson River with no loss of life as a hero.

Michael Bloomberg said he would be giving "incredibly brave" Captain Chesley Sullenberger and his crew the keys to the city.

Mr Bloomberg also honoured rescuers who pulled all 155 passengers and crew from the US Airways Airbus A320 to safety.

Investigators are now searching for the jet's two engines that have detached and are believed to be in the river.

At a news conference in New York, National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman Kitty Higgins said the agency's crews were using sonar equipment to search for the engines.

Ms Higgins said that rescuers planned to lift the plane from the river on Saturday.

The investigation is then expected to focus on recovering the flight recorders from Flight 1549 and interviewing the crew about what happened after it took off from New York's LaGuardia airport en route to Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday afternoon.

Capt Sullenberger said earlier that the crash was caused by birds flying into the engines. Investigators say they plan to interview him on Saturday.

One person suffered two broken legs in the crash and paramedics treated 78 patients, most for minor injuries.

'Inspirational'

At a news conference in New York, Mr Bloomberg said Capt Sullenberger had been "incredibly skilful" but would be unable to speak to the media while investigations were continuing.

1 1526 local time (2026 GMT): Flight 1549 takes off from LaGuardia airport 2 1527 (2027 GMT): Pilot Chesley Sullenberger reports birds hitting engines 3 1528 (2028 GMT): Pilot told to land at Teterboro airfield 4 1531 (2031 GMT): Pilot ditches plane in Hudson River

Mr Bloomberg said the writer Ernest Hemingway defined heroism as "grace under pressure".

"I think it's fair to say that Captain Sullenberger displayed that yesterday. His brave actions have inspired millions of people in this city and millions more around the world," he said.

Mr Bloomberg praised the plane's crew

The mayor also presented awards to other uniformed and civilian personnel involved in the rescue.

He said the city's "finest and bravest" workers had made "split-second decisions that resulted in a dramatic rescue".

"Because of their efforts and the calm, steady leadership shown by the plane's pilot and crew, miraculously all 155 people on that plane made it to safety," he said.

The White House said President George W Bush had telephoned Capt Sullenberger to thank him for his actions.

Mr Bush praised the former fighter pilot for his "amazing skills in bringing his plane down safely, for his bravery, and for his heroic efforts to ensure the safety of his passengers and the people in the area," said spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Bird strike

HERO PILOT Chesley B 'Sully' Sullenberger III Age 57, from Danville, California Former Air Force fighter pilot 29 years with US Airways Has own consulting business, Safety Reliability Methods Inc Profile: Capt Chesley Sullenberger Tale of miraculous escape dot.life blog: Power of twitter

Passengers from the plane and eyewitnesses have been speaking to the media about their experiences.

"I heard an explosion, and I saw flames coming from the left wing, and I thought, 'this isn't good'," said passenger Dave Sanderson.

"Then it was just controlled chaos. People started running up the aisle. People were getting shoved out of the way."

Another passenger, Billy Campbell, described water rushing into the plane as flight attendants did "a wonderful job" of evacuating everyone.

"It's good to be alive today," said Martin Sosa, a father who had been travelling with two young children and his wife.

"It's hard to believe we just survived that," he said.

Capt Sullenberger is reported to have told air traffic controllers that the plane had experienced a "double bird strike" less than a minute after take-off and asked to return to the ground.

Freezing waters

After crashing on the water, the plane was pulled rapidly down the Hudson River, until it was guided to a halt by tug boats against a pier.

The temperature was almost -7C (19F) and the current in the Hudson was running rapidly.

BIRD STRIKE DANGER Large passenger jets can withstand being hit by a 4lb (1.8kg) bird, but problems can arise with flocks of small birds, or with larger birds 219 people have been killed worldwide as a result of wildlife strikes since 1988 In 2007, over 7,600 birds and other wildlife were reported to have hit civil aircraft in the US Bird strikes cause $600m damage to aircraft in the US every year Source: Bird Strike Committee USA

Ferryboats arrived within minutes of the crash to begin the rescue as passengers emerged in life jackets.

Investigators have brought in a giant crane and a barge to help pull the jet out of the river.

Although it is largely under water the plane is still intact, but safety inspectors have said they will need to ensure it is recovered safely and without causing it to break apart.

The Department of Homeland Security has said there was no suggestion that the incident was security related.

Initial witness reports and comments from the pilot suggested the plane may have collided with a flock of geese.

Such bird strikes are fairly common but rarely cause such significant damage to two engines at the same time.

Page last updated at 17:11 GMT, Friday, 30 January 2009

Banker + gangster = bankster

Protesters make their feelings known

A POINT OF VIEW

It seems timely to resurrect this Americanism from the 1930s - one of many evocative words the United States has contributed to the English language, says Harold Evans.

Americans are pretty good at adding words to the English language. We owe them pin-up girls, highbrows, killjoys, stooges, hobos, drop-outs, shills, bobby-soxers, hijackers, do-gooders and hitchhikers who thumb a ride.

During the time Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain was cost-cutting, he spent $1.1m doing up his office - $86,000 for a rug Hear Radio 4's A Point of View

The Americanisms are so much more concise and vivid. Instead of saying "sorry we're late but drivers ahead of us slowed us down when they craned their necks to look at a crash" you can say "we were held up by rubberneckers".

Words pop in and out of our language as social conditions change. The American gangster, which is still with us, has been around as a noun and a reality since 1896 according to my Shorter Oxford, but it seems to have dropped another Americanism from the 1930s and I think now is the time to revive it.

The word is bankster, derived by a marriage of banker and gangster.

Stunned crowds gathered on Wall St as news of the 1929 crash spread

It was coined, as far as I can deduce, by an American immigrant, a fiery Sicilian-born lawyer by the name of Ferdinand Pecora. He was the chief counsel to the US Senate Committee on Banking set up in the early 30s to probe the origins of the Crash of 1929.

He exposed quite a lot of the Wall Street practices that Harvard's Professor William Z Ripley had condemned in 1928. The believable Ripley called them - get ready for these Americanisms - "prestidigitation, double-shuffling, honey-fugling, hornswoggling and skullduggery".

The professor had vainly tried to warn President Calvin Coolidge that Wall Street was full of gas and was bound to blow up. To great discomfort all round, Pecora identified Coolidge himself, by then out of office, as one of those who'd been in on the honey-fugling.

The great banking house of JP Morgan had the president on a "preferred list" by which the bank's influential friends were given a chance to buy stock at half price. Shall we say, they made out like bandits?

Today the term bankster perfectly fits Bernard Madoff, whose crooked Ponzi scheme lost $50 billion of what the trade calls OPM - other people's money - invested with him.

Costly rug

But the revelations come thick and fast. People are now struggling for words to describe the latest example of Wall St's money madness. The fabled investment bank Merrill Lynch, run by one John Thain, had so many big zeroes on its balance sheet it would have been liquidated in December but for a merger with the Bank of America.

A shotgun wedding

That was actually a shotgun marriage - in the US vernacular - since the Bank of America was forced to take billions of government money when it learned later that Merrill Lynch was down another $15bn.

Then what? In the few days in December while he was still in charge, Mr Thain reportedly spent nearly $4bn on staff bonuses. That's peanuts on Wall St. In 2007 Mr Thain himself received $83m.

But a week ago, CNBC's Charles Gasparino, in a detailed scoop on the Daily Beast website revealed that during the time Mr Thain was busy cost-cutting, he spent $1.1m doing up his office - $86,000 for a rug, $35,000 for something called a commode on legs.

Readers bayed for blood, posting comments such as: "Oh how I wish this was Revolutionary France and we peasants could storm the offices…"

The anger about the greed that got us into our mess is, in my view, wholly justified. And now we hear that 10 of the big banks that got $148bn from Uncle Sam so they could make loans to get things humming again have actually reduced their loan totals by $46bn.

Mr Thain now is history, having resigned, but the great Bank of America, the biggest in the US and maybe the world is now on the list of banks that may have to be nationalised - a word no red-blooded American ever thought would be uttered in the land of enterprise.

Have money, will lend

The piquancy of all this is that if the term banker is ever to be restored to its former prestige, the public and Wall St might reflect on one highly relevant example of a banker who was not a bankster.

Amadeo Peter Giannini

It is the story of Amadeo Peter Giannini, a big man on the side of the little man. When the transcontinental railway started services to California after the line's completion in May 1869, he was among the very first passengers.

He was in the womb of his newlywed mother, 15-year-old Virginia. His father, having made money in the goldfields, had gone back to Italy for her. It is nice to think that as the young immigrants crossed the Rockies, their adventurous spirits somehow crossed the placental barrier.

Amadeo was born on 6 May, 1870. He grew up on a little farm, whose produce his mother and father sold in booming San Francisco. In 1877 when he was six, he saw his father gunned down. His mother moved to the city to buy wholesale from farmers and sell to shops.

Amadeo - or AP as he became known - grew into a tall, strong man, more than able to hold his own in the rough auctions for fruit and veg on the wharfs where traders met the farmers' boats. He helped to build a thriving business.

When he was 31 he sold his share, saying he had no interest in accumulating wealth. "No man owns a fortune," he said. "It owns him." It was the motto of his life.

Ask and you shall receive?

He'd married and on the death of his father in law, was persuaded to take his vacant place on the board of a little bank in North Beach. He was appalled that they'd not lend money to poor immigrants. The rows in the board room reverberated over North Beach until AP walked out and started a little bank of his own to do that, the Bank of Italy.

From his work on the wharves, he'd become a shrewd judge of character, so he'd cheerfully lend money to pay doctor's bills for delivery of a baby if he judged the couple had integrity.

Phoenix from the rubble

On Wednesday 18 April, 1906, San Francisco was devastated by earthquake and fire. AP rushed to get all his gold and paper money out of danger, hid it under orange crates to conceal it from looters, and stood guard all night in his home.

It must have been a debilitating moment the next day to find his baby bank a mass of charred rubble. The bigger banks, who had vaults too hot to open, had no records and were not lending.

Smoke billows from San Francisco's flattened buildings

AP instead went down to a wharf close to the smouldering North Beach, flung a plank across two barrels, and with his baritone booming across the desolation, started lending some of his $80,000 to rebuild San Francisco.

He looked for steamship captains he knew, shoved money into their hands, saying "go north and get lumber". AP radiated so much confidence, making a big show of jiggling his little bag of gold, hundreds who'd been hoarding cash and gold banked it with him. North Beach was built faster than any other area.

By 1918 he'd established California's first state-wide banking system. A little local bank in the valley that would have closed in a run after a bad harvest could now keep open by borrowing from the city branch.

He set out to build a nationwide banking system so that distressed areas could be helped by ones that were prospering. Wall St hated him. He beat off their attempts to destroy him. In the Great Depression, he took every opportunity in the New Deal legislation to get California revived in time for the war and the boom that followed.

He did it by putting the community first, himself last. He set up low interest instalment credit plans which enabled thousands to avoid the loan sharks and buy cookers and refrigerators and autos, and he built a whole new electrical industry with his loans.

He financed the Golden Gate bridge, and the Disney movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

No man could do so much good without being maligned. It was said he wore the mask of populism to create a dangerous instrument of personal power and personal wealth.

The truth is that the man whose life was money had no interest in money. He refused to take increases in pay and spurned every bonus. He banned insider trading. Shortly after retiring in 1945, when he found himself in danger of becoming a millionaire, he set up a foundation and gave it half his personal fortune.

And the little bank for the ordinary man that he founded?

The Bank of America.

Selfish adults 'damage childhood'

By Mark Easton BBC News Home Editor

The report says children's lives are "more difficult than in the past"

The aggressive pursuit of personal success by adults is now the greatest threat to British children, a major independent report on childhood says.

It calls for a sea-change in social attitudes and policies to counter the damage done to children by society.

Family break-up, unprincipled advertising, too much competition in education and income inequality are mentioned as big contributing factors.

A panel of independent experts carried out the study over three years.

The report, called The Good Childhood Inquiry and commissioned by the Children's Society, concludes that children's lives in Britain have become "more difficult than in the past", adding that "more young people are anxious and troubled".

According to the panel, "excessive individualism" is to blame for many of the problems children face and needs to be replaced by a value system where people seek satisfaction more from helping others rather than pursuing private advantage.

A spokesman for the Department for Children Schools and Families said: "We know there are still risks and challenges ahead for children and parents and that there is more for us all to do".

'Tone deaf'

The inquiry has a long list of recommendations including:

• abolishing SATs tests and league tables in English schools

• a ban on all advertising aimed at the under 12s and no TV commercials for alcohol or unhealthy food before the 9pm watershed

• stopping building on any open space where children play

• a high-quality youth centre for every 5,000 young people

"Individual freedom and self-determination bring many blessings," writes the report's principal author, Labour peer Lord Richard Layard.

"But in Britain... the balance has tilted too far," he says.

Another contributor, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, suggests society has become "tone-deaf to the real requirements of children… in a climate where the mixture of sentimentalism and panic makes discussion of children's issues so difficult".

The panel, made up of 11 experts including eight university professors, says its conclusions are evidence based.

But some of its findings on family life in Britain are bound to be controversial.

Working mothers

It cites research suggesting that three times as many three year olds living with lone parents or a step-parent have behavioural problems compared with those living with married parents.

"Children with separate, single or step parents are 50% more likely to fail at school, have low esteem, be unpopular with other children and have behavioural difficulties, anxiety or depression," it argues.

"Child-rearing is one of the most challenging tasks in life and ideally it requires two people," the report concludes.

It also suggests that having many more working mothers has contributed to the damage done to children.

"Most women now work and their new economic independence contributes to levels of family break-up which are higher in the UK than in any other Western European country."

The panel has a series of recommendations aimed at improving the quality of family life experienced by children:

• a civil birth ceremony conducted by a registrar in which parents publicly accept the responsibilities of parenthood

• free parenting classes available around the time of birth

• free psychological and family support if relationships struggle

• rules making it easier for parents to stay at home to rear their children

Chief Executive of the Children's Society, Bob Reitemeyer, commissioned the research which included more than 30,000 submissions from organisations and children.

"Essentially the report brings a taboo into the open which is that we have to confront our selfish and individualistic culture," he said.

"We need to realise that we are collectively responsible for the welfare of all children and that together we can make childhood better."

The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls, is studying the report.

The report says parents should have free parenting classes

Although government may be sympathetic to some of the inquiry's conclusions, it is unlikely it will implement its radical proposals in the near future.

The government statement said: "The report mirrors the ambitious plan for improving children's lives and outcomes we set out in our Children's Plan, which aims to give every child the best chance in life, and we are pleased that the review acknowledges the positive impact that the Children's Plan is already having on children's lives.

"We know there are still risks and challenges ahead for children and parents and that there is more for us all to do.

"But as the report points out, in many ways our children have never lived so well - children are more educated, less sick, and more tolerant, and the government is working hard to invest, help and support children and their families to make Britain the best place in the world to grow up."

Untouched East Germany flat found

The Soviet bloc state of East Germany existed for about 40 years

A flat apparently untouched since before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 has been discovered in the German city of Leipzig, German media report.

An architect who renovates buildings in eastern Germany unlocked the door last week and was shocked to find himself in a veritable East German time warp.

It appears the inhabitant of the humble flat fled in a hurry and shrivelled bread rolls still lay in a string bag.

Grocery brands from the Socialist state filled the kitchen.

"When we opened the door we felt like Howard Carter when he found the grave of Tutankhamun," Mark Aretz told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.

"Everything was a mess but it was like a historic treasure trove, a portal into an age long gone."

A wall calendar showed August 1988 and an empty bottle of Vita Cola, Marella margarine, Juwel cigarettes and a bottle of Kristall vodka were in the kitchen.

Plastic crockery and aluminium cutlery completed the picture of a bygone state.

The only foreign product to be found was a West German bottle of deodorant.

A zinc bath stood upright against a wardrobe. There was no toilet in the flat - the occupant had to use a communal one on the landing.

According to Mr Aretz, documents and letters in the flat suggest the occupant was a man aged 24 who was in trouble with the East German authorities, and who left in a hurry some time before the Wall came down in November 1989.

汉字在日本变成“摇钱树”

汉字在日本变成“摇钱树”

（2009-01-25） 符祝慧 东京特派员

　　日本人崇拜汉字文化，每年报考汉字测试的日本人比考英文托福的人多。登记为公益团体的日本汉字检定协会近期却被指如同一棵“摇钱树”，单收考试费就累计高达73亿日元的资金，遭到教育当局调查。

　 　根据报道，在保存汉字文化上，日本汉字检定协会尽心尽力。每年年底，它都会在京都著名的清水寺内，举行汉字投票会，公布那年最热门的汉字，借以反映这一 年来的时局。去年，被挑中的是美国总统奥巴马口中的“变”字，贴切反映了突变的经济，受到外界重视。不过，“变”字在日文的另一意思是“怪”。日前，当日 本教育部清查各公益团体资产时，就为了汉字检定协会保有的73亿日元资金，摇头喊道：“怪”！

　　当局报告，日本报考汉字测试的人数在 2000年为158万，到了2007年增加到272万。协会所收的考试费分不同级别，小学生程度是1500日元，大学以及一般社会人士以上的高级程度收 5000日元。协会则为每个考生支付2000日元费用，除去成本积累了大笔盈余，显示考试这门生意原来是该协会的大金库。

　　有报道指出，日本汉字检定协会成立的宗旨，是为了保存汉字传统，为教育作出贡献，将它列入免税的公益团体没错。不过，这种赚大钱的现象，还是难以叫人信服。

　　日本当局在百般考虑后，终于列出两个或能协助抵消盈利的办法：第一、劝导该协会减低考试费，尽快让财政回归非盈利团体的一般水平。第二、应当加紧考虑将资产用在其他公益事业上，以免成为外界批评对象。

　 　对于这些命令，日本汉字检定协会关系人表示将尽力配合。不过，他也为难地指出：“其实在2004年时，也被教育部当局警告过一次，最后是将考试费从 6000日元降到5000日元，以为这就能解决问题。不过，后来才发现汉字测试越来越有市场，因为人们实在越来越重视汉字。”

　　日本重视汉字，全靠民间发挥力量。电视问答节目，就经常以考汉字为主题。一些日本脑专家上电视指出，多读多写汉字能增强脑力。不过，这些都不外是让日本汉字变成大棵“摇钱树”的原因。

Page last updated at 17:52 GMT, Tuesday, 13 January 2009

Teen killed mother in Halo 3 row

Petric's lawyers argued he was not guilty of murder on insanity grounds

A US teenager killed his mother and wounded his father in revenge after they took away his violent computer game, a judge has ruled.

The defence team for Daniel Petric, 17, had argued his addiction to the Halo 3 game, in which players shoot invading aliens, had made him insane.

But the judge rejected this, saying he had planned revenge for weeks.

Petric, of Ohio, was tried as an adult and faces a maximum possible penalty of life in prison without parole.

On the night of the shooting in October 2007, Petric used his father's key to open a lockbox and remove a 9mm handgun and the game, the court heard.

His father Mark, who was shot in the head and survived, testified that his son came into the room and asked: "Would you guys close your eyes? I have a surprise for you."

He said he expected a pleasant surprise. Then his head went numb from the gunshot.

The Associated Press news agency reports that Microsoft, which owns the intellectual property for the game, declined to comment beyond a statement saying: "We are aware of the situation and it is a tragic case."

Page last updated at 06:22 GMT, Friday, 9 January 2009

Venomous mammal caught on camera

By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News

Rare footage of one of the world's most strange and elusive mammals has been captured by scientists.

Large, and with a long, thin snout, the Hispaniolan solenodon resembles an overgrown shrew; it can inject passing prey with a venom-loaded bite.

Little is known about the creature, which is found in the Caribbean, but it is under threat from deforestation, hunting and introduced species.

Researchers say conservation efforts are now needed.

The mammal was filmed in the summer of 2008 during a month-long expedition to the Dominican Republic - one of only two countries where this nocturnal, insect-eating animal (Solenodon paradoxus) can be found (the other is Haiti).

It is an amazing creature - it is one of the most evolutionary distinct mammals in the world Dr Sam Turvey, ZSL

The researchers from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Ornithological Society of Hispaniola were able to take measurements and DNA from the creature before it was released.

Dr Richard Young, from Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, said: "My colleagues were excited and thrilled when they found it in the trap.

"But despite a month's worth of trapping effort, they only ever caught a single individual."

Specialised teeth

The Hispaniolan solenodon is one of the creatures highlighted by the Zoological Society of London's (ZSL) Edge of Existence programme, which focuses its efforts on conservation plans for animals that are both endangered and evolutionarily distinctive.

Dr Sam Turvey, a ZSL researcher involved with the programme, told BBC News: "It is an amazing creature - it is one of the most evolutionary distinct mammals in the world.

"Along with the other species of solenodon, which is found in Cuba (Solenodon cubanus), it is the only living mammal that can actually inject venom into their prey through specialised teeth.

"The fossil record shows that some other now-extinct mammal groups also had so-called dental venom delivery systems. So this might have been a more general ancient mammalian characteristic that has been lost in most modern mammals, and is only retained in a couple of very ancient lineages."

A population was discovered living in a remote corner of Haiti

Dr Turvey and other scientists working for the Edge programme recently discovered a population of solenodons living in a remote corner of Haiti.

The researcher said that the team was surprised to find them; previously it had been feared that the creatures had become extinct in this country because of extensive deforestation, recently introduced mongoose and dogs, and hunting by humans for food.

He said: "They are still incredibly vulnerable and fragile. So it is really important to get back out there to work how how these animals are surviving."

Conservation efforts are now needed in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the teams believe, but the first step would be to find out more about the animal.

Dr Young said: "We know little about its ecology, its behaviour, its population status, its genetics - and without that knowledge base it is really difficult to design effective conservation."

The research will be undertaken by ZSL's Edge programme, Durrell, the Ornithological Society of Hispaniola, the Audubon Society of Haiti, and the Dominican Republic's National Zoological Park and Agency for Protected Areas and Biodiversity.

Page last updated at 13:15 GMT, Saturday, 27 December 2008

Festive goat up in flames again

Authorities in Gavle had tried to fireproof the goat

A giant straw goat erected each Christmas in a northern Swedish town has been burned down - yet again.

The 13m-high (43ft) animal in Gavle has been torched 23 times since it was first erected in 1966. It has also been hit by a car and had its legs cut off.

The vandals are rarely caught, though in 2001 a 51-year-old American tourist spent 18 days in jail after being convicted of setting it alight.

In 2007, the goat managed to make it through the festive season unscathed.

Goat committee spokeswoman Anna Ostman said she was saddened to learn that this year's unlucky creature had been set on fire early on Saturday morning.

But she said: "We have been so happy that he survived through Christmas Eve, which is the toughest period every year.

"So far this year, people from 105 countries have followed the goat via the webcams and many become really sad when they learn that he's burned down."

The 7m-long (23ft), three tonne goat was originally designed to attract tourists to Gavle, which is 106 miles (170km) north of the Swedish capital.

GOAT HIGHLIGHTS 1966: The first goat is burned down - beginning the tradition 1970: It is set on fire six hours after being erected 1971: Tired of arson, the project is abandoned. Schoolchildren build a miniature. It is smashed to pieces. 1976: A car crashes into the goat 1979: The goat is burned down before it is finished 1987: The goat is treated with fireproofing - but still goes up in smoke

But in its first year it was burned down on New Year's Eve and since then has been attacked regularly.

In 2005, it was torched by two arsonists dressed as Father Christmas and the Gingerbread Man.

Authorities in Gavle have tried to protect the goat using fireproofing chemicals and security guards.

But just 10 of the goats, which are built in the town's central square, have survived beyond Christmas since 1966.

Goats have a special place in Swedish tradition. According to folklore, they delivered festive gifts before Father Christmas took over.

Happy? Spread it around

Dec 6, 2008

Happy? Spread it around

		According to the study, geography can affect happiness: if you have a friend who becomes happy and lives within a mile (1.6 km), it will increase your likelihood of being happy by 25 per cent. -- PHOTO: INTERNET

LONDON - HAPPINESS is infectious and can 'ripple' through social groups such as family and friends - but work colleagues are apparently immune to each other's moods, according to a study published on Friday.

The effect creates 'clusters' of happy and unhappy people, both socially and in geographical terms, said the study, stressing that contentment 'is not merely the province of isolated individuals'.

But while the mood of neighbours and friends can have more impact on people than that of live-in partners, work colleagues are not affected by a happy person in their midst, said the study in the British Medical Journal.

'Changes in individual happiness can ripple through social networks and generate large scale structure in the network, giving rise to clusters of happy and unhappy individuals,' said the study's authors.

'Most important from our perspective is the recognition that people are embedded in social networks and that the health and well-being of one person affects the health and well-being of others.

'Human happiness is not merely the province of isolated individuals,' added the study, by Professor Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and Professor James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego.

According to the study, geography can affect happiness: if you have a friend who becomes happy and lives within a mile (1.6 km), it will increase your likelihood of being happy by 25 per cent.

They found that live-in partners who become happy increase the likelihood of their partner being happy by 8 per cent; happy siblings living nearby boost joy levels by 14 per cent, and neighbours by 34 per cent.

'Work colleagues did not affect happiness levels, suggesting that social context may curtail the spread of emotional states,' said the study.

In an editorial accompanying the study, Professor Andrew Steptoe of University College, London and Professor Ana Diez Roux of the University of Michigan School of Public Health, called it 'groundbreaking'.

'If happiness is indeed transmitted through social connections, it could indirectly contribute to the social transmission of health, and has serious implications for the design of policies and interventions,' they said.

The study was based on research involving 5,124 adults aged 21-70, followed between 1971 and 2003.

To assess happiness they were asked to agree or disagree with four statements: 'I felt hopeful about the future', 'I was happy', 'I enjoyed life', 'I felt that I was just as good as other people'.

Happiness was defined as a maximum positive agreement with all four statements. -- AFP

Page last updated at 20:58 GMT, Thursday, 6 November 2008

Monsoon link to fall of dynasties

The record came from a stalagmite found in Wanxiang Cave, China

The demise of some of China's ruling dynasties may have been linked to changes in the strength of monsoon rains, a new study suggests.

The findings come from 1,800-year record of the Asian monsoon preserved in a stalagmite from a Chinese cave.

Weak - and therefore dry - monsoon periods coincided with the demise of the Tang, Yuan and Ming imperial dynasties, the scientists said.

A US-Chinese team report their work in the journal Science.

Stalagmites are largely made up of calcium carbonate, which precipitates from groundwater dripping from the ceiling of a cave.

Chemical analysis of a 118mm-long stalagmite from Wangxiang Cave, in Gansu province, north-west China, told the history of strong and weak cycles in the monsoon - the rains that water crops to feed millions of people in Asia.

It also shows that, over the last 50 years, greenhouse gases and aerosols have taken over from natural variability to become the dominant influence on the monsoon.

Death of dynasties

Small variations in the forms, or isotopes, of the stalagmite's oxygen composition reflected variations in rainfall near the cave.

Proportions of the radioactive elements uranium and thorium in the deposit allowed the researchers to date the stalagmite layers to within an average of two-and-a-half years.

The stalagmite grew continuously from 190AD to 2003

By comparing the rain record with Chinese historical records, Pingzhong Zhang of Lanzhou University in China, and colleagues, found three out of five "multi-century" dynasties - the Tang, the Yuan and the Ming - ended after several decades of weaker summer monsoons with drier conditions.

"Summer monsoon winds originate in the Indian Ocean and sweep into China," said Hai Cheng, co-author from the University of Minnesota, US.

"When the summer monsoon is stronger, it pushes farther north-west into China."

These moisture-laden winds bring rain necessary for cultivating rice. But when the monsoon is weak, the rains stall farther south and east, depriving northern and western parts of China of summer rains.

This could have led to poor rice harvests and civil unrest, the researchers speculate.

"Whereas other factors would certainly have affected these chapters of Chinese cultural history, our correlations suggest that climate played a key role," the researchers write in Science.

But a weak monsoon could also be linked to changes further afield. The researchers say a dry period between 850AD and 940AD coincides not only with the decline of the Chinese Tang dynasty but also with the fall of the Mayan civilization in America.

Human influence

Subsequent strengthening of the monsoon may have contributed to the rapid increase in rice cultivation, a dramatic increase in population and general stability at the beginning of China's Northern Song Dynasty.

The monsoon record also matched up nicely with the advance and retreat of Swiss glaciers.

Scientists say the natural archive shows that climate change can have devastating effects on local populations - even when this change is mild when averaged across the globe.

In the cave record, the monsoon followed trends in solar activity over many centuries, suggesting the Sun played an important role in the variability of this weather system.

To a lesser extent, it also followed northern hemisphere temperatures on a millennial and centennial scale. As temperatures went up, the monsoon became stronger and, as they dropped, it weakened.

However, over the last 50 years, this relationship has switched. The researchers attribute this to the influence of greenhouse gas emissions and sulphate aerosols released by human activities.

Helping the dying with living

Nov 5, 2008

THE ST INTERVIEW

Helping the dying with living

Instead of discussing euthanasia, the focus should be on helping terminally ill live with less pain, says expert

By Radha Basu, Senior Correspondent
		Dr Shaw with Ms Joyce Neo Soh Hoon, 54, at St Joseph's Home and Hospice. Communicating with the dying can be taught and learnt, Dr Shaw believes. Often, what doctors need to do is simply to listen. -- ST PHOTO: JOYCE FANG

Dr Rosalie Shaw, 70, is executive director of the Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network, which helps develop services for the terminally ill in Asia. She is also a consultant at the National Cancer Centre and a visiting consultant at the KK Women's and Children's Hospital.

EUTHANASIA is the wrong conversation to have in a nation concerned with dying with dignity.

Often, those who have the hardest time accepting death are successful men in their 50s and 60s 'who seem surprised that wealth cannot buy health'. ... more

The focus instead should be on care - how to help the terminally ill live with less pain, says Dr Rosalie Shaw, a palliative care specialist who has helped hundreds here live out their last days over the past 16 years.

'Euthanasia is not about allowing the terminally ill to die with dignity and without distress,' asserts the Australian, who moved to Singapore from Perth in 1992 to help set up hospice care here. 'That is what palliative care does. Instead, it is an act with the intention to kill.'

As a consultant at the National Cancer Centre and visiting consultant at KK Women's and Children's Hospital, she tends to the terminally ill. As executive director of the Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network, she helps train doctors and nurses in end-of-life care all over Asia.

Weighing in on the euthanasia debate, which was sparked off here when Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan raised the issue last month in response to letters on euthanasia in the Chinese press, she says most terminally ill people do not really want to die.

Yet, once every few months, a patient asks her for help to end it all. 'When people ask to die, what they really mean is, 'Do you know how difficult this is?',' she says.

The plea is usually a cry for help. 'As their bodies break down, they hope that they will not linger long, but they don't expect doctors to do anything but listen.'

Her zeal in opposing euthanasia resonates with that of Catholic Archbishop Nicholas Chia who last weekend called on his flock, including Catholic doctors, to reject euthanasia.

Dr Shaw declines to discuss her religion, saying it is a 'private matter'. The grounds on which she opposes euthanasia are both professional and personal, she says. As a doctor taught to heal or cure, the 'intent to kill' is anathema.

Listening to hundreds of terminally ill people has taught her that the wish to die is not always due to physical pain. Very often, distress is made more acute by mental turmoil - caused by social isolation, depression, anxiety or sorrow.

Dr Shaw has distilled 16 years' worth of experience caring for the dying here into a book, Soft Sift In An Hourglass, now available in book stores.

It offers haunting portraits of how different people face the inevitable.

There is the unmarried violin player dying of bowel cancer, still in love with the married man she spent one weekend with 30 years earlier.

There is the frail housewife with two young children, angry at leaving the world before her time.

'The book is not meant to be didactic,' she says. 'It merely opens windows into issues we must all confront some day.'

While no two people face death exactly the same way, she has noticed broad similarities.

Such as how the dying often lose their appetite as their organs shut down, yet their families continue to force-feed them in the hope that they will recover.

And how some embrace religion before death, hoping for a miraculous recovery, but feel let down by God as death closes in on them anyway.

Often, those who have the hardest time accepting death are successful men in their 50s and 60s 'who seem surprised that wealth cannot buy health'.

In general, she has found that most people cling to life, rather than want to end it.

Studies bear this out. One by Melbourne University's palliative care professor David Kissane examined cases of seven cancer patients who had sought euthanasia when the practice was made legal for eight months between 1996 and 1997 in Australia's Northern Territory.

'It showed that some people asked for euthanasia not because death was imminent, but because they found life intolerable,' she says.

Singapore, she says, should not be taking a short cut and legalising this form of killing. 'A society that allows euthanasia devalues life,' she maintains.

Sanctioning it could pressure the elderly and terminally ill to want to end their lives. They may feel compelled to 'shuffle off' so they do not become burdens to society.

It could lead society down a slippery slope to involuntary euthanasia, where others make such choices for patients no longer able to decide for themselves. The Netherlands, where euthanasia has been legal since 1984, has reported many cases of involuntary euthanasia.

Dr Shaw warns that doctors may also be inclined to take the easy way out when they are unable to control difficult symptoms. And families may make decisions on behalf of patients who are unconscious or have dementia.

What Singapore should work on instead, she feels, is improving end-of-life care.

Currently, home hospice services reach nearly three in four cancer patients here. But for non-cancer patients, such care is limited. Only about one in four patients who died last year had subsidised hospice care.

The network of home care services for the elderly is also limited. Both need to be broadened.

Back home in Victoria, Dr Shaw's father had heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and prostate cancer. Yet he lived alone. His meals were brought to him and his home was cleaned by state-subsidised home care professionals.

'He loved the people who came. We need more of that here,' she says.

Keeping the elderly out of hospitals and nursing homes would not only make them happier, but could be cheaper too.

At the same time, doctors need to be better trained both in how to control symptoms such as pain, and how to help the gravely ill face death.

Often, young doctors are reluctant to discuss openly with patients how little time they have left.

'They interpret death from their own perspective,' she says. 'Because they are not ready, they feel their patients may not be.'

During a training course she conducted, a young doctor asked how he could avoid lying to his patients.

Dr Shaw's reply: 'Often, what is required is not for doctors to talk but to listen.'

Communicating with the dying is an art which can be taught and learnt, she believes.

Some doctors ramp up treatments during their patients' last days, even though it is futile, because they do not know any other way to help. 'They don't have the heart to explain how ineffective the treatment is likely to be.'

But explaining that, and stopping the treatment, may prove liberating.

Just last week, one of her patients was told by a cancer specialist that she had reached a stage where neither chemotherapy nor radiation was likely to work.

'It was like a cloud of confusion had lifted. Now she knew what to do - go home, eat just what she wanted and enjoy life,' said Dr Shaw.

Not all patients, however, like to discuss death or say their last goodbyes. Dr Shaw's own mother, who died of heart disease in 1991, was reticent till the end.

'When I asked her how she was feeling, she said she did not want to talk about it. But she was prepared and had sorted out all her drawers. We have to be sensitive to what patients want.'

Either way, listening is key.

When a patient in great pain asked for help to end her life some years ago, Dr Shaw asked why.

The woman revealed that she had never told her husband - or anyone else - that their child was actually fathered by another man.

'All I did was listen. All she did was cry,' Dr Shaw recalls. 'And the pain just melted away.'

The woman died three days later, unburdened and at peace.

Page last updated at 09:53 GMT, Tuesday, 4 November 2008

TV shows link to teen pregnancies

Shows like Sex and the City were linked to teen pregnancies

Teenage girls who watch a lot of TV shows with a high sexual content are twice as likely to become pregnant, according to a study.

Boys watching similar programmes, like Friends and Sex and the City, were also more likely to get a girl pregnant, the research in Pediatrics found.

The study authors said limiting exposure to sexual content on TV might reduce teen pregnancies.

Experts urged parents to talk more openly with their children about sex.

Study author Dr Anita Chandra of the RAND Corporation said adolescents received a considerable amount of information about sex through television and the problem was that programmes such as these typically did not highlight the risks and responsibilities of sex.

Sexual content on TV has doubled in the last few years, especially during the period of our research. We found a strong association Lead researcher Dr Anita Chandra

She said:"Our findings suggest that television may play a significant role in the high rates of teenage pregnancy in the US."

According to Dr Chandra, hers is the first study to show such a direct link.

The researchers interviewed 2,000 adolescents aged 12 to 17 three times between 2001 and 2004.

Teens who watched larger amounts of sexually charged TV shows were twice as likely to experience a pregnancy in the subsequent three years, compared with those with lower levels of exposure.

Sexual content

By the third interview, 744 of the teenagers said they had engaged in sexual intercourse and 718 of the youths shared with the researchers information about their pregnancy histories.

Of that group, 91 teens - 58 girls and 33 boys - were involved in a pregnancy.

Dr Chandra said: "Sexual content on TV has doubled in the last few years, especially during the period of our research. We found a strong association."

The US has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates among industrialized nations, with nearly one million adolescent females becoming pregnant each year, with the majority of these pregnancies unplanned, according to RAND.

Britain has Europe's highest teenage pregnancy rate.

The idea of parents sitting down with their children and talking about the issues raised in these television programmes is a great one A spokeswoman from Brook

Tory MP Nadine Dorries said it would be interesting to see if a similar study in the UK revealed a trend.

"Information such as this empowers parents when making difficult decisions as to what they do and don't allow their daughters to watch," she said.

Psychologist David Walsh, president of the National Institute on Media and the Family said many teenagers relied on the media to act as sex educator.

Dr Walsh said: "If you have a kid who no-one's talking to about sex and who then watches sitcoms on TV where sex is presented as 'this is what cool people do', the outcome is obvious.

"The message to parents is to talk to their kids about sex long before they become teenagers."

A spokeswoman from Brook said: "The causes of teen pregnancy in the UK are quite complex.

"There are a range of ways we can try to reduce the teen pregnancy rate, such as providing sex and relationship education and outreach and community services for young people.

"The idea of parents sitting down with their children and talking about the issues raised in these television programmes is a great one."

Page last updated at 14:57 GMT, Monday, 3 November 2008

Councils ban use of Latin terms

Several councils have banned the use of Latin terminology

A number of local councils in Britain have banned their staff from using Latin words, because they say they might confuse people.

Several local authorities have ruled that phrases like "vice versa", "pro rata", and even "via" should not be used, in speech or in writing.

But the ban has prompted anger among some Latin scholars.

Professor Mary Beard of Cambridge University said it was the linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing.

Some local councils say using Latin is elitist and discriminatory, because some people might not understand it - particularly if English is not their first language.

Bournemouth Council is among those which has discouraged Latin. It has drawn up a list of 18 Latin phrases which its staff are advised not to use, either verbally or in official correspondence.

The council denies that it places a ban on Latin words.

A council spokesman said: "We advise against using certain words, particularly when staff are writing to those whose first language may not be English.

"The advice is intended as a guide only, not a direction."

However, the council's Plain Language Guide lists Latin under the heading "Things To Avoid".

Other local councils have banned "QED" and "ad hoc", while other typical Latin terms include "bona fide", "ad lib" and "quid pro quo".

But the move has been welcomed by the Plain English Campaign which says some officials only use Latin to make themselves feel important.

A Campaign spokesman said the ban might stop people confusing the Latin abbreviation e.g. with the word "egg".

Page last updated at 01:15 GMT, Tuesday, 4 November 2008

Pope urged to admit common ground

By Robert Pigott Religious Affairs Correspondent

Efforts will be made to persuade the Pope of the shared origins of religions

When 138 senior Muslim scholars and clergy tried to establish the common ground between Islam and Christianity last year, they said the very peace of the world hung on the outcome.

On Tuesday, a high-ranking delegation is beginning a rare visit to Rome in an effort to persuade the Pope to endorse what they say are the shared origins and values of the world's two biggest religions.

Their letter, A Common Word, cited passages from the Koran which the scholars said showed that Christianity and Islam worship the same God, and require their respective followers to show each other particular friendship.

The document examined fundamental doctrine and stressed what it said were key similarities - such as the belief in one God and the requirement for believers to "love their neighbours as themselves".

Significantly the letter acknowledged that the Prophet Muhammad was told only the same truths that had already been revealed to Jewish and Christian prophets, including Jesus himself.

After a year using the Islamic principle of seeking consensus, the letter has developed into a "manifesto" and is backed by almost 300 leaders from Sunni, Shi'ite, Sufi and other Muslim traditions.

'Out of hand'

The initiative was welcomed promptly by several Christian leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

The Vatican has, however, responded more cautiously to the prospect of identifying common beliefs.

There has been renewed urgency among Muslim leaders to forge new bonds with Christians since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.

A lecture by Pope Benedict quoting a 14th Century Byzantine emperor's accusation that Muhammad encouraged the use of violence in spreading Islam led to a furious reaction among Muslims and contributed to the sense of a widening gap between the religions.

The high-ranking delegation going to Rome includes the Grand Mufti of Bosnia, an Iranian Ayatollah, a Jordanian prince and British converts to Islam.

The Vatican is cautious about the prospect of identifying common beliefs

They are also aiming to work out practical measures for resolving crises in Muslim-Christian relations, such as the angry controversy that followed the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark in 2006.

Dr Ibrahim Kalin, a Turkish scholar who will be among the Muslims who meet the Pope on Thursday, said the dispute about the cartoons showed how important it was to establish regular dialogue.

He said: "Things got out of hand very quickly. A line of communication is needed where we can issue a statement and mobilise resources as a pre-emptive act."

Some of those behind the Common Word initiative believe it has been too easy for radical or extremist Muslims to use the media to promote a distorted view of Islam. One of their principal aims is to create a body that can speak authoritatively for mainstream Islam.

'Agree to disagree'

Although the Pope can speak for about a billion Roman Catholics (roughly half of the world's Christian population), Islam has no central authority able to represent its 1.3 billion faithful.

Apart from practical mechanisms to cope with disagreements, the Pope's Muslim visitors are hoping for a measure of agreement on matters of fundamental belief, and for an exchange of reading-lists - each side providing the names of the books that most accurately describe their values and traditions.

They also want to extend the Christian-Muslim conversation to include that other Abrahamic religion, Judaism.

The Pope is on record as seeking dialogue with Muslims, and is reported to favour a franker, more robust, approach. He is likely to have his own priorities, including a discussion of religious freedom.

A Common Word is backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury

It is a sensitive issue, not least because some Muslim-majority countries forbid conversion, and oppress their Christian minorities.

Last month a formal meeting of Catholic bishops in Rome said the conversation should stress the need for equal rights for women. Some Islamic states - such as Saudi Arabia - limit women's rights.

Other awkward issues could include the need for democracy.

There is plenty that both sides are clear they cannot agree. Muslims regard Jesus as an important prophet, for example, but they do not believe he was crucified.

Another of the big differences between the religions centres on how God is understood.

Ibrahim Kalin says the Christian belief in Jesus as part of a divine trinity with God the Father and the Holy Spirit conflicts with Muslim doctrine.

"The Trinity is currently not accepted by Muslims as explaining the infinity and oneness of God," said Dr Kalin.

"We don't agree on that, so we shouldn't try to sink these differences into a warped theology, but talk to each other on the basis of agreeing to disagree."