WORLD NEWS

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Heavy flying Great Indian bustard faces extinction

By Matt Walker Editor, BBC Nature

Great Indian bustard (Image: Asad R Rahmani)

Male bustards can reach almost 15kg

One of the heaviest flying birds in the world is in danger of going extinct, conservationists are warning.

Great Indian bustards stand a metre tall and weigh up to 15kg, yet as few as 250 may now survive.
That is according to the latest edition of the IUCN Red List for Birds, which reports that the total number of threatened birds species has risen to 1253.
That means 13% of all surviving bird species are now threatened.
The 2011 edition of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List for Birds records the changing prospects for the world's bird species.
"In the space of a year another 13 bird species have moved into the threatened categories," said Jean-Christophe Vie, deputy director of the IUCN Global Species Programme.

A handful of birds vie for the title of the heaviest flier
While mute swans, Andean condors and storks are among the heaviest, various bustard species are also contenders
Weighing between 10 and 16kg, the European Great bustard and African Kori bustard are often quoted as the heaviest flying birds, with the Great Indian bustard not far behind, often weighing just short of 15kg

In all, 189 species are now considered to be Critically Endangered, including the Great Indian bustard.

The bustard was once widespread across the grasslands of India and Pakistan. But now its range is restricted to small isolated fragments, with its last stronghold in Rajasthan.
Other species on the brink of extinction include the Bahama oriole (Icterus northropi), also newly listed as Critically Endangered.
Recent surveys suggest that perhaps just 180 individuals of this black and yellow Caribbean bird may survive.
The orioles live in mature woodland, and nest in coconut palms, according to BirdLife International, an alliance of conservation groups that leads on putting together the Red List for birds.
The oriole is also threatened by the recent arrival of the Shiny cowbird (Molothrus bonariensis), a brood parasite that lays its eggs in other species' nests.
Some species are faring better than in past years.

The enigmatic Bahama oriole

For example, the Campbell Island teal (Anas nesiotis) has benefited from a massive programme to eradicate rats, plus captive-breeding of remaining individuals.
The species has now returned to New Zealand's Campbell Island, resulting in a reclassification of its threat status to Endangered.
Around the world, the greatest concentrations of threatened bird species occur in the forested tropics.
A disproportionately high number of threatened species, almost half, occur on islands, particularly oceanic islands far from land.
For seabirds, the greatest concentrations of threatened species are found in the southern oceans, notably around New Zealand.
In 2010, BirdLife confirmed the extinction of Alaotra grebe (Tachybaptus rufolavatus).
Over the last 500 years, invasive alien species have been partly or wholly responsible for the extinction of at least 65 bird species, according to BirdLife International.

Bahrain protests: Trial opens for 47 doctors and nurses

A sketch of the special security court provided by Bahrain's state news agency

Bahrain Protests

Dozens of doctors and nurses who treated injured protesters in Bahrain have appeared in court charged with attempting to topple the monarchy.

The 47 medics appeared in a special military court in Manama.
They have been held since March, when Bahrain declared an emergency law, which was only lifted last week.
Bahrain's mainly Shia protesters have been calling for democratic reforms and more rights for the country's Shia majority in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
Hundreds of opposition supporters have been detained since March, when Bahrain's rulers called in military support from its Gulf Arab neighbours - mostly Saudi Arabia and the UAE - to suppress the protests.
More than 20 people were killed during the government's campaign to stifle the demonstrations. Two people have been sentenced to death for their part in the protests. Four have died in police custody.
Court restrictions

Charges against doctors and nurses

Taking part in illegal protests for criminal ends
Calling for the overthrow of the ruling system
Inciting hatred against the ruling system
Holding an un-authorised weapon
Occupation of the Salmaniya Medical Complex
Seizing medical equipment
Deliberately disseminating false stories and information on the injured

Only select journalists are allowed to cover the latest trials from inside the special security court, which has military and civilian judges.

In April, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) expressed concern about attacks on physicians, patients and unarmed civilians since protests began in February. It said dozens of medics have been arrested - some by masked men in the middle of the night.
The Bahraini authorities have denied targeting medics, saying some of Bahrain's main medical facilities "had been overrun by political and sectarian activity".
Since the lifting of the emergency law, small protests have been held in Shia villages, but they have been quickly dispersed by police using tear gas, rubber bullets, sound grenades and birdshot (small metal pellets), videos on YouTube appear to show.
Bahrain's ruler, King Hamad al-Khalifa, has announced that a national dialogue on reform will begin next month.

Skin cancer treatments revealed at conference

The new drugs improve the survival rates of patients with skin cancer

Patients with advanced skin cancer could benefit from two new treatments that extend life, a cancer meeting in Chicago has heard.

Scientists say a pill called Vemurafenib appears to give patients a greater chance of surviving longer than chemotherapy.
It was tested on a group of 675 patients with advanced melanoma.
Another drug, taken intravenously, called Ipilimumab, is said to give patients extra years of life.
The results were presented at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
During a trial, 84% of patients who took Vemurafenib pills twice a day were still alive six months later. This compares with 64% of those on standard chemotherapy.
The drug works by acting on a faulty gene, BRAF, found in half of terminally ill patients whose cancer has spread to other organs.

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This is the biggest breakthrough in melanoma treatment in more than 30 years”

End Quote Researcher Professor Richard Marais

The results were so impressive that the British experts running the trial stopped it early so they could switch all patients in the group over to Vemurafenib.

And trials showed the drug reduced the risk of the disease worsening by 74%, compared with chemotherapy.
Meanwhile, trial results from another study show that a one-course infusion treatment of Ipilimumab may extend the survival of patients with advanced melanoma.
'Enormous advance' Several patients have lived for years when they might otherwise have died in weeks or months, say investigators. At least one is still alive five years after receiving the treatment.

Click to play

Nell Barrie, from Cancer Research UK, says the cancer pill Vemurafenib is a 'very exciting' development.

Research is now being conducted to find out whether Vemurafenib could be used for other cancers, including ovarian, thyroid and bowel cancer.
Both treatments are now being assessed by European licensing bodies and could become available to UK patients within months, subject to approval.
Although it is unclear if the NHS would be able to afford to use these relatively expensive drugs that cost tens of thousands of pounds.
Professor Richard Marais, whose work at the Institute of Cancer Research demonstrated the importance of BRAF in melanoma, said: "This is the biggest breakthrough in melanoma treatment in more than 30 years.
"The results demonstrate for the first time that a targeted therapy can work in melanoma and will change our approach to treating this disease. It is an enormous advance in the field."
Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK's chief clinician, said: "For the first time, we have effective treatments becoming available for melanoma.
"Both show how the research we have been doing is feeding through into help for patients.
"It is a first step but a vitally important one, and it encourages us to redouble our efforts for people with this most dangerous type of skin cancer."
Malignant melanoma kills more than 2,000 people in the UK each year, and more than 11,000 people annually develop the disease.

Bosnian Serbs defensive in Mladic country

By Nick Thorpe BBC News, central Bosnia-Hercegovina

Exterior of Ratko Mladic's wartime headquarters in Han Pijesak

Gen Mladic's headquarters was tucked away in the mountains of central Bosnia

Mladic on trial

Ratko Mladic's wartime headquarters in Han Pijesak in central Bosnia is in ruins.

Cows graze on the grass in front of buildings littered with debris. The insulation has been torn from the walls, rubble and human excrement cover the floors.
In the officers' canteen I find a relief map of the Balkans, the cities and larger towns marked in red.
There is Sarajevo, the city his troops bombarded for three and a half years.
Just up the road beyond Han Pijesak is Srebrenica - a place notorious for the Bosnian Serbs' massacre of about 8,000 unarmed Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys in 1995.

In pictures: Mladic's heartland

In the top right corner, in the green flat fields of northern Serbia, there is the small village of Lazarevo, where Gen Mladic was arrested on 26 May without a struggle.

He is now in prison in The Hague, awaiting trial.
Looting Thunder rips open the sky like a mortar barrage.
Tucked away in the mountains of central Bosnia, this place was originally built to serve as the wartime Yugoslav army headquarters, in the case of attack by Nato or the Soviet Union.
Nato did flatten one or two of the buildings opposite while Gen Mladic was in charge in 1995, but most of the damage here has been done by looters.
They were looking for different treasures though - they missed his maps, the list of local phone numbers, and the little red manual on how to aim and fire 82mm guns.
Stukelja Dasa, a Bosnian Serb refugee from Olovo, 40km (25 miles) away through the mountains, lives today with her granddaughter in the sturdy wooden building which once served as a guardhouse.
There is no way for her to return to her old home - it was burnt down by the Bosniaks, she says, because her sons all served in the Bosnian Serb army.

Stukelja Dasa, Bosnian Serb refugee now living in the old guardhouse at Gen Mladic's wartime headquarters

Stukelja Dasa misses the pre-war times when ethnicity did not divide neighbours

She survives on 80 euros (£71) a month, but is delighted to get visitors.
She misses the time before the war, she says, when no-one worried about who was who, and you could still drink coffee with your neighbours.
'Our hero' Two men stop our car at the entrance to Ratko Mladic's home village, Bozanovici. But they wave us through, when they see I am accompanied by his neighbour, Branko Mandic.
We pass the red tin-roofed house Gen Mladic built for himself when he returned here as an army officer, to reach the house he was born in.
There is a wood-burning stove in each room, to take the edge off the mountain chill, and a family portrait on one wall - of his aunt, his uncle, and their daughter.
There are only three rooms, and a barn with two cows.
Mr Mandic is proud of Ratko Mladic, his former neighbour, like everyone here. And Srebrenica, I ask?
"The women and children and older people were all put on buses, and driven to safety. Those people who were younger, who had guns... were killed in the forests, in battles," he says.
"And after that, they brought all of them to the mass graves, to the same place. From all over Bosnia. To the same hole."
So no prisoners were killed, I ask.
"No, no, no. All those capable of carrying arms were in the forest."

Picture of Gen Mladic's aunt, uncle and their daughter

A family portrait hangs on one wall of Gen Mladic's old house in Bozanovici

In the nearby town of Kalinovik, Pantelija Curguz, president of the Bosnian Serb Veterans' Association, takes a different tack.
"Any man who is not convicted is innocent. We want him to have a fair trial," he says. "For us, he is still our commander, and our hero."
Is he not upset by the absence of Bosnian Serb leaders from his association's rallies?
"We don't insist on political support. This is our issue, as veterans. If politicians think they should support it - it's up to them."
'Myths of the past' Milorad Dodik, the all-powerful president of the Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska) may not have attended the rallies.
But he has proposed setting up a fighting fund of 50,000 euros to help defend Gen Mladic and other Bosnian Serbs accused of war crimes.
For Svetlana Cenic, an opposition leader in Banja Luka and outspoken critic of Mr Dodik, that is just evidence of nationalist manipulation.
She says: "To cover up the fact that Dodik and his party have stolen the people's money, they pretend to be defenders of the Serbian national interest, and they pretend that the Republika Srpska is in danger, which is not true."
And the public remain gullible, at the mercy of a media which the president and his people largely control, she says.
"They still want to believe in their myths of the past. They don't want to face the truth, no matter how many facts are presented in other countries, about the bombardment of Sarajevo, for example," she adds
One evening in Srebrenica, a small delegation of young people come looking for me.
"Please could you not just report on the war, the death and destruction," says Milena Nikolic, a Bosnian Serb who was 11 when the war started and now runs the town youth centre.
On a Friday night there is a "Battle of the Bands", with at least one - the Silver Stones - combining Bosniak and Serb musicians.
"We try not to talk about reconciliation, because it's a word which doesn't make sense to those who didn't experience the war," Ms Nikolic says.
"Instead, we work with music, with art and culture. People meet and make friends with each other on those terms."

Chorleywood: The bread that changed Britain

Comments (98)

In today's Magazine

For the past 50 years, a British food stuff has spread across the world to Australia, South Africa, South America, Turkey and even to supermarket shelves in France. But is the long life, plastic wrapped, sandwich loaf that was first created in Chorleywood a design classic or a crime against bread, asks David Sillito.

More than 80% of all loaves in Britain are now made the Chorleywood way.
Even the fresh crusty bread baked at your local supermarket is probably made the Chorleywood way.
The work of the scientists at the Chorleywood Flour Milling and Bakery Research Association laboratories in 1961 led to a new way of producing bread, making the average loaf in Britain 40% softer, reducing its cost and more than doubling its life.

25th November 1965: A line of baked loaves ready to be packed at the Wonderloaf Bakery, Tottenham, north London.

The move was good for British farmers growing low-protein wheat

What is more, each slice was uniform.
For its supporters, it was the innovation that pushed bread into the modern era.
"It is a process we invented and we should be very proud of it," says Gordon Polson, of the British Federation of Bakers. "UK bread is around the cheapest in the world."
The bread scientist, Stan Cauvain, who worked with the original inventors and has written the definitive work on the Chorleywood Process says they knew from the beginning they had changed baking forever.
"The inventors knew they were on to something special and it would have far reaching consequences."
Its origins lay in the late 1950s and the need to try to find a way for small bakers to compete with new industrial bakeries. The light brown "national loaf" during the long years of rationing had, for many consumers, outstayed its welcome. Soft, springy, white bread - that did not go stale quickly - was what the public wanted.

'Best food value in Britain'

"Already, thanks to the Chorleywood process, nearly half the wheat in our bread is British. The industry's current development programme could bring about a situation where British bread is made from an even higher proportion of British wheat - thus making the British loaf even better value for money in relation to world bread prices."
From a 1975 advertisement in The Times, issued by the Flour Advisory Bureau

The research bakers at Chorleywood discovered that by adding hard fats, extra yeast and a number of chemicals and then mixing at high speed you got a dough that was ready to bake in a fraction of the time it normally took.

It allowed bread to be made easily and economically with low protein British wheat.
But with industrial bakers quickly adopting the process, rather than helping small bakeries, the research at Chorleywood helped put thousands of them out of business.
But for some bread lovers, particularly the "artisan bread movement" anything Chorleywood is simply not real bread.
"This stuff is like cotton wool," says Paul Barker, who himself used to work as an industrial baker and sold the emulsifiers, enzymes and other chemicals used in modern baking.

Click to play

The classic white loaf - how it is made and what people think of it

He has now set up Cinnamon Square in Rickmansworth, a "theatre of baking" aimed at reinvigorating the old way of making bread.
The issue he says is about both taste and digestion. "Modern bread doesn't taste of bread," he says. "If it's not allowed to rise and prove naturally then it doesn't develop the proper taste."
There is also the matter of health. The Chorleywood loaf has twice the amount of yeast of a traditional loaf, it has enzymes and oxidants added and while certain chemical additives such as potassium bromate have been banned, Paul Barker and other bread campaigners believe it is behind the growth in the number of people who struggle to digest bread.
"Every day I have people who say they have given up eating bread and then find they don't have a problem with bread that's been allowed to develop slowly. My sourdough takes more than 70 hours to make."
Proving this, however, is another matter. Prof John Warner at Imperial College in London says there has been a marked increase in allergies and intolerance of wheat and bread over the last 50 years, just as there has been an increase in allergies to dust, nuts and dozens of other items.

20th Century history of bread

1928: First bread slicing machine, invented by Otto Rohwedder, exhibited at a bakery trade fair in the US
1930: Large UK bakeries take commercial slicers and sliced bread first appears in shops
1933: Around 80% of US bread is pre-sliced and wrapped. The phrase "the best thing since sliced bread" coined
1941: Calcium added to UK flour to prevent rickets
1942: The national loaf - much like today's brown loaf - introduced to combat shortage of white flour
1954: Conditions in bakeries regulated by the Night Baking Act
1956: National loaf abolished
1961: The Chorleywood Bread Process introduced

Source: The Federation of Bakers

However, three-quarters of people who believe they have an allergy or medical intolerance to bread show no signs of any symptoms in blind testing.

He, himself, though is wary of what sort of bread he eats. "We have several pounds of bacteria in our guts and there have been marked changes in this gut flora in affluent societies over the last 50 years."
Prof Warner says he would always choose the simpler product.
And while producers are not obliged to say what enzymes are added to the bread, Polson says there is no evidence that it is any harder to digest.
"There are some additional additives to give it a bit more shelf life, a bit of extra softness - but all it's doing is augmenting what is happening in the natural process."
So, the Chorleywood process has its critics but its success with consumers is undeniable.
Even in France some stick loaves are now made the Chorleywood way, although not the classic "baguette".
The process is now used in more than 30 countries with Colombia and Ecuador taking it on in the last few years. Britain's white bread market is worth about £1bn a year, and most of that is Chorleywood bread.
It's cheap, filling, soft, long-lasting and, because it can turn low-protein British wheat in to palatable bread, a boon to British farmers.
But while it's considered by researchers at the food technology research institute in Chipping Campden to be a marvel of food engineering - the public does not seem to value it too highly.
Almost a third of the bread bought in Britain - 680,000 tonnes a year - is thrown away.

Chorleywood: The bread that changed Britain

Comments (98)

In today's Magazine

The move was good for British farmers growing low-protein wheat

'Best food value in Britain'

Click to play

The classic white loaf - how it is made and what people think of it

20th Century history of bread

1928: First bread slicing machine, invented by Otto Rohwedder, exhibited at a bakery trade fair in the US
1930: Large UK bakeries take commercial slicers and sliced bread first appears in shops
1933: Around 80% of US bread is pre-sliced and wrapped. The phrase "the best thing since sliced bread" coined
1941: Calcium added to UK flour to prevent rickets
1942: The national loaf - much like today's brown loaf - introduced to combat shortage of white flour
1954: Conditions in bakeries regulated by the Night Baking Act
1956: National loaf abolished
1961: The Chorleywood Bread Process introduced

Source: The Federation of Bakers

However, three-quarters of people who believe they have an allergy or medical intolerance to bread show no signs of any symptoms in blind testing.

Has Wayne Rooney dealt well with hair transplant news?

By Kathryn Westcott BBC News, Magazine

Wayne Rooney before his operation to counteract premature hair loss

Footballer Wayne Rooney tweeted at the weekend that he had undergone hair transplant surgery, joining a growing list of celebrities who have gone public on such procedures. But how should ordinary men break the news to their friends and family?

For many men, losing their hair is an extremely sensitive issue. Whatever efforts they take to counteract the effects can be embarrassing.
Telling people you have had hair transplant surgery can elicit accusations of "manity" - male vanity.
But Rooney has earned some praise for his approach in going public shortly after his operation, with one commentator from the Irish Times saying he had handled the issue with great style.
"I was going bald at 25 - why not. I'm delighted with the result," Rooney posted at the weekend, adding: "It's still a bit bruised and swollen."
His frank approach elicited a supportive message from Manchester United and England team-mate, Rio Ferdinand: "Just don't go down the wearing a alice band route!! You'll be doing headshoulders adverts soon! Hope its gone OK. Good luck lad."
On Monday, Rooney followed up the announcement by posting a picture of his post-op head on his Twitter feed.

James Nesbitt in 2009 and right, in 2011, after his hair transplant surgery

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi took a different approach in 2004. He was subjected to ridicule in the national and international media after wearing a white bandana, leaving commentators and the public playing a guessing game as whether or not he had hair transplant surgery.
He went public months later, saying he felt 25 years younger and that as far as he was concerned cosmetic surgery was a way of showing respect to your loved ones.
Rooney, who has premature hair loss, joins celebrities such as actors John Cleese and James Nesbitt in talking publicly about having hair transplant surgery.
Nesbitt, who spent tens of thousands of pounds on his operation, had been open about his fear of losing his hair. He initially discussed his transplant in a video testimonial for the Dublin clinic that carried it out at the end of 2010.
Virility link
In subsequent interviews, he maintained that it has changed his life and that anyone who says going bald isn't horrible "is lying".
His honesty led one commentator to suggest that he had "played a blinder... a mix of matter-of-fact honesty and bewilderment that people are making so much of it".

“Start Quote

It's good if you can look confident and have a sense of humour - if you show shame of embarrassment it's the worst thing”

End Quote Judi James Social behaviour expert

To many men, hair loss is a sensitive issue. In many people's minds it is associated with loss of virility and vitality - counter-intuitive given that high testosterone is one of the reasons cited by medical experts for hair loss.

Figures for how many hair transplant operations take place in the UK are hard to come by, but Dr Bessam Farjo, medical director of the Institute of Trichologists, estimates that the annual figure is around 10,000, compared with about 5,000 five years ago.
The surgeon runs his own medical centres, where he says he has seen numbers for these procedures steadily increase, and they are now starting to spike.
But hair transplant surgery is an expensive, painful procedure. Inevitably, men can face a hard time once family and friends get wind of it.
"The implication is that it's a vanity thing," says Mike Shallcross, deputy editor of Men's Health magazine. "But men nowadays want to look better and they want more advice on how to do it. There is a big boom area in male grooming and people do it for different reasons."
He thinks Rooney's approach to going public is a good one.
"I think it was admirable that he was so upfront," he says. "It is worse having had something obvious done, but trying to pretend nothing has happened.
"I don't know of any reason why one couldn't drip it into an exchange of e-mails with your friends - after all, if you turned up at the pub with your mates with a full head of hair, it could become an early talking point.

In 2004 Silvio Berlusconi appeared in a bandana, sparking rumours that he had undergone hair surgery

"Probably with colleagues at work, it's best to tell them in advance. It's a bit like having laser eye surgery, it's noticeable, suddenly you won't be wearing glasses anymore."
Shallcross says it's better not to make too big a fuss when announcing the news.
"The bigger the deal you make of it, the more dramatically people will react."
But, as Shallcross points out, hair transplants are not for everyone who is losing their hair.
"Male pattern baldness is common but many men are wearing it well - gone are the days of the Bobby Charlton combover - there are a lot of men who have made hair loss look cool. Actor Jason Statham is one of our most popular cover stars," he says.
But for those who do go down that route, humour can be key when making the announcement. It was this element that stood out with the Rooney announcement - and his wife's follow-up tweet pointing out that the decision had not been made on account of Coleen badgering him.
"Humour is very important in this kind of announcement," says social behaviour expert Judi James. "People take a lead from your own behaviour, it's good if you can look confident and have a sense of humour. If you show shame of embarrassment it's the worst thing.
"You could mention it beforehand. That will avoid the sniggering, and people are more likely to speak straight to your face about what it was like etc. Wayne has done the right thing - announce it and get it over and done with, and perhaps suggest a date when you will be showing it off.
"If you change your look, the reaction are mostly shock or laughter and actually laughter is not a bad response. If handled well, people will be laughing with you rather than at you."

Tuesday 7 June 2011

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