Researchers from the Food Labeling to Advance Better Education for Life (FLABEL) investigated 37,000 products in five potentially unhealthy types of food, including biscuits, chilled ready meals and fizzy drinks.

They found Britain had the highest proportion of nutritional information on packaging, with more than 95 percent including it on the back of packs, and 82 percent on the front.

However, the research also found that most consumers understand perfectly well how healthy various foods are with only the bare minimum of nutritional information.

Authors of the study discovered that people who said they understood or liked the various labeling schemes were happy to ignore them and buy the food they liked best, regardless of how unhealthy it was.

FLABEL advisor Professor Klaus Grunert, from Aarhus University in Denmark called on food companies to put clear information on the front of packs for maximum impact.

However, Grunert conceded that even this wouldn’t make shoppers to dump the junk, saying: ‘Motivation was a major factor affecting the impact of nutrition labels on the choices made by consumers.

He added: ‘The FLABEL research shows the most promising option for increasing consumers’ attention to, and use of, nutrition information on food labels, is to provide information on key nutrients and energy on the front of the pack, in a consistent way.

‘Complementing this information with a health logo can also increase attention to, and use of, the information, especially when the consumer is under time pressure.

Twenty seconds of laser light can remove pigment in brown eyes so they gradually turn blue.

However, other eye experts urge caution because destroying eye pigment can cause sight problems if too much light is allowed to enter the pupil.

The process involves a computerized scanning system that takes a picture of the iris and works out which areas to treat.

Other eye experts have expressed reservations.

“The pigment is there for a reason. If the pigment is lost you can get problems such as glare or double vision,” said Larry Benjamin, a consultant eye surgeon at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in the UK.

The pigment called melanin does not regenerate so the treatment is irreversible.
Dr. Homer said that he only removes the pigment from the eye’s surface.

“This is only around one third to one half as thick as the pigment at the back of the iris and has no medical significance,” he said.

Dr. Homer also claimed patients would be less sensitive to light than those born with blue eyes. He reasoned that brown-eyed people have more pigment in the other areas of their eyeballs, and most of it will be left untouched.

“We run tests for 15 different safety examination procedures. We run the tests before and after the treatment, and the following day, and the following weeks, and the following months and the following three months.

“Thus far we have no evidence of any injury.”

Seventeen people have been treated so far. All are very short-sighted. They have been offered lens transplants in return for taking part.

Dr. Homer said the work is checked by a board of ophthalmology experts to ensure it is up to standard.

• patients with eye color change done

A Florida-based company named Scottish Spirits Ltd. and apparently produced in Panama, has a water base to which a variety of chemicals, flavors and colorings are added.

It has zero per cent alcohol and it is designed to allow individuals with medical conditions or with religious beliefs that prohibit alcohol consumption, to drink.

Significantly, it has been declared as Halal certified, which opens up the possibility of huge sales around the globe in Muslim countries and the Middle East.

ArKay is being promoted to deliver an ‘exceptional taste of a whiskey without the alcohol content’ and ideal for teetotalers or those worried about drinking and driving.

Makers say the new drink tastes and looks exactly like traditional whiskey. It is suitable for drinking straight-up, on the rocks, or with your favorite mixers.

It is due to go on sale around the world on December 1. In Britain it will cost £10 (US$ 16) a bottle and £4 (US$ 6.4) for a can.

The exceptional taste of whisky without the alcohol content makes it a perfect beverage day or night, according to an Arkay spokesman.

However, a spokesman for the Scotch Whisky Association said: ‘It is not possible to make alcohol-free whisky.

This company is trying to exploit whiskey reputation with highly irresponsible marketing.’

Real Scotch whisky is a simple creation of water and barley, which grows well in the cool climate and summer rains that are common north of the border.

Each distillery’s unique taste is delivered by the way the barley is dried, often in peat kilns, together with the way the whisky is carefully aged over many years, often in oak casks.

• halal whisky

In 1997, before Laurent Kabila took power in Congo, formerly called Zaire, aides close to former President Mobutu Sese Seko smuggled crates of diamonds and more than US$ 40 million dollars in cash out of the country on a jet chartered by the South African government, according to a South African newspaper.

In Haiti, President Jean Claude Duvalier and his wife, Michelle, withdrew at least US$ 33 million dollars from the country’s central bank, transferring it to foreign accounts, and may have stored some money and jewelry in a safe deposit box in Manhattan, according to court papers filed by the Haitian government after he was forced out in 1986.

The former Philippine first lady, Imelda R. Marcos, and her three children were charged with removing 22 crates of Philippine pesos from the country when they fled to Hawaii in 1986.

The Panamanian dictator, General Manuel Antonio Noriega, was reported to have stashed US$ 5.8 million dollars in denominations of 10s, 20s, 50s and 100s in a file cabinet at his home. United States authorities seized the money during the invasion of Panama in 1989.

Then, in 2003, in the hours before American bombs began falling on Baghdad, one of President Saddam Hussein’s sons, Qusay Saddam Hussein, was said by officials to have carried off nearly US$ 1 billion dollars in cash from the vaults of the country’s Central Bank.

The volume of cash was so great, some US$ 900 million dollars in American US$ 100 dollar bills and as much as US$ 100 million worth of euros, that a team of workers took two hours to load the money on three tractor trailers.

Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi has hoarded tens of billions of US dollars in cash, Libyan dinars and possibly other currencies in banks and in Bab Al Azizia, his Tripoli compound, intelligence officials and as disclosed from the person with ties to the Libyan government.

A fund of such magnitude helps Qaddafi withstand economic sanctions and a freeze on Libyan government assets abroad. And if he flees, the hard cash is easier to carry than other assets like cars or houses.

• bab al azizia
• bakouri

It is part of the show’s not so covert political agenda , which is to encourage Afghans to question the way their government works.

Nepotism is also a major theme in a new television show ‘The Ministry,’ one that is well understood by every Afghan. Family, almost always excels virtue.

People complain about it, but they rarely feel they can question it publicly because hiring a family member is a form of loyalty, which is respected, and no one would want to be shunned by their own family.

Television has an especially important role to play in Afghanistan because so few people read and they need cinema and theater to teach them, according to Abdul Qadir Farouk, 65, a longtime actor.

“The actor is the camera of society, watching the society with different lens,” said Mr. Farouk, who plays the minister in the show. “It is to make people smile, but also to give people political knowledge.”

In the old buildings that house Afghanistan’s ministries, one office is always new, the minister’s. It is also often where corrupt deals are done, incompetence often reigns and favoritism is prevalent.

It is the setting that provides the show, ‘The Ministry.’ that mimic the nepotism, payoffs and incompetence that are rampant in the Afghan government.

The show which will be premiered in the nation’s largest TV network, Tolo, is a new kind of show for Afghanistan, a ‘mock-umentary.’ It aims to make Afghans smile, not just because it is funny but because it is familiar, holding up a mirror to their lives but with just enough artistic distance to make them laugh.

The idea for the show originated with Saad Mohseni, the chairman of Moby group, which owns Tolo, who worked briefly for a ministry before his television conglomerate got off the ground in the early days after the Taliban were driven from power.

The show’s story is about, the Ministry of Waste in the imaginary country of Heckland, which means ‘nothing land,’ is inhabited by a weak minister and his hapless entourage.

The characters are people most Afghans can easily recognize; the ‘react first, think later’ minister of waste collection and his subservient and not quite bright brother in law who works as the ministry’s administrative officer; his pretty young secretary; the butler who serves tea; the minister’s ambitious top adviser; and his self aggrandizing and not very efficient bodyguard.

For all the humor and slapstick, the show has a dark side, showing the odds that Afghan must confront day after day. For all that, it is not nearly as depressing as some of Afghanistan’s real government offices.

A 30 year old, energetic government deputy minister, who wanted to make things work, was upset, that despite the thousands government employees working, he found out that at 4 p.m. he was the only person left in the office.

He was dismayed to the improper behavior of government officials and workers who only work an hour a day instead of the minimum eight.

• pipa arse
• pipas arse
• princessbreasts pics

Icas are big, up to 2.5 centimeters in length and fat, they can bite viciously.
They are a delicacy in Silveiras, Brazil and are hunted by residents like Jorge da Silva. He captured the ants with his barehands. They frequently bit him, his hands are typically bloodied.

Mr. da Silva plucked a giant ant from the ground, pulled its wings, legs and mandible, and tossed it into his mouth. “Tastes like mint,” said Mr. da Silva, 58, with an audible crunch.

Mr. da Silva roamed the hills above this town of 6,000, on the hunt for a rare epicurean delicacy, icas or queen ants. The thunderous spring rains drive the ants out of the ground, and for a few weeks Silveiras becomes a frenzy of ant hunting.

But the ants are under threat, residents contend. Driven by Brazil’s growing economy. With urbanization and the poison that they are putting into the soil, they don’t have much time left, according to Vera Toledo, 67, a writer and an anthropologist.

The ants number are dwindling. The principal culprits are pesticides used on eucalyptus trees that are planted to produce cellulose for paper and other products, local officials said.

Residents have not tried to make the ants into a commercial enterprise. While they say they could use the extra money, many seem more concerned with preserving the tradition and the ant population for themselves.

Ocilio Ferraz, 72, Silveiras’s resident icas guru said, he grew up eating icas and taught the tradition to his children. He has dedicated himself to keeping the ant feast alive. He has resisted efforts to export them, preferring to receive visitors at his restaurant where he has a special kitchen devoted to frying the icas.

The ant catchers sell their haul to Mr. Ferraz for about US$ 15 dollars per liter. He charges about US$ 12 for a large plate of icas for two, with wheat fried in fat.

Edison Mendes Mota, the former mayor of Silveiras said he does not care for the icas, even though his wife has 8 kilograms of icas in their freezer. Mr. Mota supports the town’s growing eucalyptus industry, though the planting needs to be regulated.

Alair Duarte, the president of the town council, has proposed limiting eucalyptus plantings so the ants can reproduce. “If we don’t do it soon, we won’t have any icas left,” he said.

• delicacies in apayao
• delicacies of apayao
• delicacy of apayao

Few maids from other countries have been coming in to replace the Indonesians, said Jeffrey Foo, the association’s deputy president.

For most people, the luxury of a live-in maid is a fantasy in Malaysia, however, even though the annual per capita income is just 25,000 ringgit or US$ 8,100, maids came to be common in middle class households, thanks in large part to a low paid Indonesians labor pool.

But more than a year ago, after horrific reports of beatings, rapes and other abuse of maids by Malaysian employers, Indonesia barred its citizens from taking new jobs as domestic workers here.

Aegile Fernandez, consultant manager of the Anti Trafficking in Persons Unit at Tenaganita, said many domestic helpers worked long hours, starting as early as 4:30 am. Many complain that they do not receive a weekly day off and that their employers often withhold their wages and take away their passports so they cannot return home or seek other jobs.

Indonesia wants Malaysia to guarantee a minimum wage; the typical monthly pay for Indonesians has been less than US$ 200 dollars. It wants to ensure that domestic workers received a weekly day off. And it is asking for better enforcement of the law allowing them to hold onto their passports.

The agencies say they have tried everything they can think of to find more maids, recruiting in other countries, like Cambodia, and trying to persuade the Malaysian government to lower minimum age requirement for foreign maids to 18 from 21, to no avail.

“Now, I have to do it all by myself,” complained Ivy Lim, a mother of two who has been looking for a new domestic helper for the past three months.

After her last maid left, Ms. Lim said, she had to give up her full time nursing job so she could do household chores and be at home when her children return from school. She is one of about 35,000 Malaysians said to be on waiting lists for domestic helpers.

According to Ms. Aegile Fernandez, some Cambodian girls as young as 14 had turned up at the organization’s shelters in Kuala Lumpur after running away from their employers. Some said they had lied about their age so that they could work in Malaysia, she said.

Rozumah Baharudin, a university professor who has researched the effect of maids on family life, said the number of Malaysians employing domestic helpers had increased in recent years as more women joined the work force.

She and her husband have employed an Indonesian maid for five years, and she said she is lucky to be able to come home without having to think about chores. Something that an employer can walk in the door and the clothes have been washed, the floors have been mopped, and dinner is ready on the table.

But only a small fraction was spent in Red Hook. Most tourists head for more upscale areas.

Cruise workers typically have time for little more than lunch during their break. When cruise ships dock at Red Hook, Brooklyn, their passengers pile into taxis and shuttle buses.

But many of their housekeepers, waiters, bartenders, and engine mechanics head for a former bait and tackle shop nearby.

Benjamin David, a former cruise ship waiter, uses classic Filipino dishes like offal with rice and bitter melon salad at his restaurant named Philly-Pinoy, to tap into one of the global market’s ethnic niches, the Filipinos in the cruise industry.

Mr. David, 43, though his name sounds to be a Filipino, he is actually a native from India. He has never even visited the Philippines, but he knows from experience how the workers feel.

He offers a Filipino menu, including the popular dinuguan, a pork blood delicacy, only when the ships are in dock.

A 2008 study found that Filipinos made up roughly 14 percent of the cruise staff, based on a sampling of 116 ships. Many speak English.

Cruise ships pay relatively well, and jobs at sea can be easier to get than jobs in other countries because of visas issues.

The facade of Mr. Davids restaurant is a bamboo covered facade evokes the Philippines. the smell of grilled fish, coconut milk, and pork blood stew leaves no doubt.

Filipino cruise ship workers flocked to Philly Pinoy, a former bait shop near the docks, for home style dishes in New York.

Nick Rabaya, 42, a Filipino who has waited tables for five years on the Caribbean Princess. “When I taste this food,” he said, “It’s like going home.”

Rodrigo Francisco , 41, a waiter on the ship, scooped rice and pork offal with his fingers the Filipino way, and pronounced the food as tasty as home cooked.

Mr. Francisco said that as soon as he is back at sea, he began counting the days until the return to the Brooklyn port.

Although Mr. David is from Mumbai, he established a link to the Philippines through his sister in law, Rowena David, who is from the Philippines.

She, her husband and Mr. David, all had work for the years on ships and knew the hardships faced by employees who spend up to 10 months a year away from home.

• filipino police uniform
• filipino policeman images

As of March, in this hilly megalopolis in south central China, modest burial sites are in. Fancy tombs are out. And in some places, so are fancy funerals.

After a quarter of century in which the gap between rich and poor has steadily widened, the wretched excesses of the affluent are increasingly a Chinese government concern.

Income inequality and its growing disparity are among of China’s biggest economic problems, according to World Bank’s chief economist Justin Yifu Lin.

Ever since Deng Xiaoping introduced economic reforms of capitalism and free enterprise to China in 1978, that it was fine to get rich, much of China has seemed hell bent on that goal. But some local governments would like those who succeed not to lord it over others, at least when it comes to paying final respects.

Plots for ashes are limited to 1.5 square meters. Tombstones are supposed to be no higher than 100 centimeters, although it is not clear that limit will be enforced. Sellers of oversize plots have been warned of severe fines, as much as 300 times the plot’s price.

In March in Wenling, a coastal city south of Shanghai, five brothers were fined US$ 450 dollars for violating the city’s regulation against funeral ‘extravagance and waste’ after they commandeered the grounds of a high school to bid their mother goodbye with pomp befitting a state funeral.

As thousands of onlookers watched a ceremony that featured nine flower decked limousines, a uniformed band and a 16 gun salute. The high school principal, the assistant principal and the government’s head of funeral practices were all fired.

Chen Changwen, director of the sociology department at Sichuan University, said ostentatious tombs are particularly irksome because many Chinese find even a simple grave marker beyond their means.

Ordinary people who walk by and see these lavish tombs might not be able to keep their emotions in balance, according to Zheng Wenzhong, as he visited the relatively modest resting place of a relative at The Temple of the Lighted Lamp Cemetery.

Yang Bin, 48, who earns roughly US$ 150 dollars a month chiseling tombstones at Zhenwu Shan cemetery, quietly criticized the excesses of ‘capitalists’ who ‘are everywhere now’.

Most Chengdu mourners interviewed expressed skepticism about the tomb limits. At Temple of the Lighted Lamp cemetery, Kuang Lan, 42, said: “My personal opinion is if you have the money to make a bigger tomb, make a bigger one. If not, make a smaller one.”

The mixture is shaped into egg size portions, put into plastic bags and left to sit in the tropical heat for 3 days. That is not nearly long enough to kill the parasites, which die only after at least six months of fermentation.

The villagers in this poverty-stricken farming community are passionate about their food, especially the traditional varieties of fermented fish that one aficionado describes tasting like heaven but smelling like hell.

For the past three decades Dr. Banchob Sripa, the head of the tropical disease research laboratory at Khon Kaen University, has led an unsuccessful campaign against the parasite, known as a liver fluke and which is also endemic in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, parts of China, the Korean Peninsula and Siberia.

Transmitted through feces, the parasites thrive in rural areas without proper sanitation, and they rely on snails, fish, cats and humans as hosts.

The deadly effects of eating parasite-infected raw fish accumulate over decades. Somewhere between 1 percent and 5 percent of people infected with the parasites contract liver cancer.

The deadly cancer is relatively uncommon in most parts of the world but represents the majority of the 70 liver cancer deaths a day in Thailand, according to Dr. Banchob.

Cooking the fish would eliminate the risk of infection. But the battle against liver flukes is being undermined in Thailand by a deeply ingrained love of the sour and smoky tasting fermented dishes that generations of villagers have relished.

Some villagers cannot break the habit and has preferred to take the risk by traditionally eating it raw, despite telling them to either boil or cook it said Nutcharin Yanarangsri, a volunteer at health clinic.

• pla som
• Robin Gibb has liver cancer