HYPERTENSION: Pharmacists Caution Against High Consumption Of Noodles, Paracetamol

As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to mark this year’s World Health Day, with the theme “High Blood Pressure”, the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, PSN, has cautioned against unrestrained consumption of foods such as noodles which are high in salt content, and drugs such as paracetamol that contain sodium, as a way of effectively addressing risk factors for raised blood pressure or hypertension.
Giving the warning in a statement to mark the Day in Lagos, President, PSN, Pharm. Olumide Akintayo said: “The risk of developing high blood pressure can be reduced by reducing salt intake, eating a balanced diet, avoiding harmful use of alcohol, taking regular physical activity, maintaining a healthy body weight, and avoiding tobacco use.”
Akintayo observed that reduction of hypertension in the Nigerian population can only be effected through strong public health policies such as reduction of salt in processed food and widely available diagnosis and treatment that tackle hypertension and other risk factors together.
His words: “The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, PSN, admonishes the consuming public on dietary patterns which is critical in hypertension. Some popular diets like some brands of noodles account for 61 percent of daily salt requirement in the smallest packs.
“Newly promoted brands of soluble paracetamol with about 450mg of sodium per tablet which transcends 2.7g daily when six tabs are taken a day will be inimical to the health of hypertensives and so call for caution,” Akintayo said.
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Nigerians too timid to push for revolution, says Rivers Governor, Amaechi

Abdulrahman Abdulmalik

Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi

Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers on Saturday said most Nigerians have resigned themselves to lives of suffering and lacked the necessary courage to force a change in their country.
Speaking in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, at the second Nigeria Symposium for Young and Emerging Leaders, Mr. Amaechi said Nigeria would not undergo a forceful revolution anytime soon because citizens are too timid and unwilling to make sacrifices.
He said the terrible living standards in Nigeria had made the country long ripe for a revolution but that citizens needed the kind of courage that forced change in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere. and has ruled out the possibility of having a violent revolution in the country.
He said, “Yes, revolution can happen outside Nigeria. But here, I do not think so. Tell me what happened in Sudan, Libya, Zimbabwe and other countries that have not happened here.
“Our elasticity has no limit. You do not pray for electricity to be regular but you know that some Nigerians pray ‘God, let the light be stable today.’  We pray without working to solve our problems and we think God will do what we are supposed to do for us.”
The governor, who said he would never support Nigeria’s disintegration, said whoever wanted a change in Nigeria must be prepared to face up to guns and other instruments of intimidation and harassment.
A lot of young people across the country attended the symposium which also had  Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, polician and businessman, Pat Utomi, Chief Executive Officer of Sahara Group, Tonye Cole, among others in attendance.
 PremiumTimes

A Warning to Young People: Don't Become a Teacher

Nothing I have ever done has brought me as much joy as I have received from teaching children how to write the past 14 years. Helping young writers grow and mature has been richly rewarding and I would not trade my experiences for anything.
That being said, if I were 18 years old and deciding how I want to spend my adult years, the last thing I would want to become is a classroom teacher.
Classroom teachers, especially those who are just out of college and entering the profession, are more stressed and less valued than at any previous time in our history.
They have to listen to a long list of politicians who belittle their ability, blame them for every student whose grades do not reach arbitrary standards, and want to take away every fringe benefit they have -- everything from the possibility of achieving tenure to receiving a decent pension.
Young teachers from across the United States have told me they no longer have the ability to properly manage classrooms, not because of lack of training, not because of lack of ability, not because of lack of desire, but because of upper administration decisions to reduce statistics on classroom referrals and in-school and out-of-school suspensions. As any classroom teacher can tell you, when the students know there will be no repercussions for their actions, there will be no change in their behavior. When there is no change in their behavior, other students will have a more difficult time learning.
Teachers are being told over and over again that their job is not to teach, but to guide students to learning on their own. While I am fully in favor of students taking control of their learning, I also remember a long list of teachers whose knowledge and experience helped me to become a better student and a better person. They encouraged me to learn on my own, and I did, but they also taught me many things. In these days when virtual learning is being force-fed to public schools by those who will financially benefit, the classroom teacher is being increasingly devalued. The concept being pushed upon us is not of a teacher teaching, but one of who babysits while the thoroughly engaged students magically learn on their own.
During the coming week in Missouri, the House of Representatives will vote on a bill which would eliminate teacher tenure, tie 33 percent of our pay to standardized test scores (and a lesser, unspecified percentage for those who teach untested subjects) and permit such innovations as "student surveys" to become a part of the evaluation process.
Each year, I allow my students to critique me and offer suggestions for my class. I learn a lot from those evaluations and have implemented some of the suggestions the students have made. But there is no way that eighth graders' opinions should be a part of deciding whether I continue to be employed.
The Missouri House recently passed a budget that included $2.5 million to put Teach for America instructors in our urban schools. The legislature also recently acted to extend the use of ABCTE (American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence), a program that allows people to switch careers and become teachers without having to go through required teaching courses.
It is hard to get past the message being sent that our teachers are not good enough so we have to go outside to find new ones.
And of course to go along with all of these slaps in the face to classroom teachers, the move toward merit pay continues. Merit pay and eliminating teacher tenure, while turning teachers into at-will employees are the biggest disservice our leaders can do to students. How many good classroom teachers will no longer be in the classroom because they question decisions by ham handed administrators looking to quickly make a name for themselves by implementing shortsighted procedures that might look good on resumes, but will have a negative impact on student learning.
If you don't believe this kind of thing will happen, take a look at what has occurred in our nation's public schools since the advent of No Child Left Behind. Everything that is not math or reading has been de-emphasized. The teaching of history, civics, geography, and the arts have shrunk to almost nothing in some schools, or are made to serve the tested areas. Elementary children have limited recess time so more time can be squeezed in for math and reading.
Even worse, in some schools weeks of valuable classroom time are wasted giving practice standardized tests (and tests to practice for the practice standardized tests) so obsessive administrators can track how the students are doing. In many school districts across the nation, teachers have told me, curriculum is being based on these practice standardized tests.
That devaluation and de-emphasis of classroom teachers will grow under Common Core Standards. Pearson, the company that has received the contract to create the tests, has a full series of practice tests, while other companies like McGraw-Hill with its Acuity division, are already changing gears from offering practice materials for state tests to providing comprehensive materials for Common Core.
Why would anyone willingly sign up for this madness?
As a reporter who covered education for more than two decades, and as a teacher who has been in the classroom for the past 14 years, I cannot remember a time when the classrooms have been filled with bad teachers. The poor teachers almost never lasted long enough to receive tenure. Whether it is was because they could not maintain control over their classrooms or because they did not have sufficient command over their subject matter, they soon found it wise to find another line of work.
Yes, there are exceptions -- people who slipped through the cracks, and gained tenure, but there is nothing to stop administrators from removing those teachers. All tenure does is to provide teachers with the right to a hearing. It does not guarantee their jobs.
Times have changed. I have watched over the past few years as wonderfully gifted young teachers have left the classroom, feeling they do not have support and that things are not going to get any better.
In the past, these are the teachers who stayed, earned tenure, and built the solid framework that has served their communities and our nation well.
That framework is being torn down, oftentimes by politicians who would never dream of sending their own children to the kind of schools they are mandating for others.
Despite all of the attacks on the teachers, I am continually amazed at the high quality of the young people who are entering the profession. It is hard to kill idealism, no matter how much our leaders (in both parties) try.
I suppose I am just kidding myself about encouraging young people to enter some other profession, any other profession, besides teaching.
After all, what other profession would allow me to make $37,000 a year after 14 years of experience and have people tell me how greedy I am?

 HuffingtonPost

Uruguay Legalizes Gay Marriage

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Uruguayan lawmakers voted Wednesday to legalize gay marriage, making the South American country the third in the Americas to do so.
Supporters of the law, who had filled the public seats in the legislative building, erupted in celebration when the results were announced. The bill received the backing of 71 of the 92 members of the Chamber of Deputies present.
"We are living a historic moment," said Federico Grana, a leader of the Black Sheep Collective, a gay rights group that drafted the proposal. "In terms of the steps needed, we calculate that the first gay couples should be getting married 90 days after the promulgation of the law, or in the middle of July."
The "marriage equality project," as it is called, was already approved by ample majorities in both legislative houses, but senators made some changes that required a final vote by the deputies. Among them: Gay and lesbian foreigners will now be allowed to come to Uruguay to marry, just as heterosexual couples can, said Michelle Suarez of the Black Sheep Collective.
President Jose Mujica, whose governing Broad Front majority backed the law, is expected to put it into effect within 10 days.
Nationalist Sen. Gerardo Amarilla opposed the law, saying it "debases the institution of marriage" and affects the family, especially in its "role in procreation."
The vote makes Uruguay the third country in the Americas after Canada and Argentina to eliminate laws making marriage, adoption and other family rights exclusive to heterosexuals. In all, 12 nations around the world now have taken this step.
While some countries have carved out new territory for gay and lesbian couples without affecting heterosexual marrieds, Uruguay is creating a single set of rules for all people, gay or straight. Instead of the words "husband and wife" in marriage contracts, it refers to the gender-neutral "contracting parties."
All couples will get to decide which parent's surname comes first when they have children. All couples can adopt, or undergo in-vitro fertilization procedures.
The legislation also updates divorce laws in Uruguay, which in 1912 gave women only the right to unilaterally renounce their wedding vows as a sort of equalizer to male power. Now either spouse will be able to unilaterally request a divorce and get one. The law also raises the age when people can legally marry from 12 years old for girls and 14 for boys to 16 for both genders.
Outside congress, gay couples holding hands, transvestites and transgender couples jumped in celebration when the result was announced. People in costumes carrying Uruguayan and rainbow flags danced to electronic music.
"I have all the rights and obligations of everyone else. I pay my taxes and fulfill my responsibilities, why would I be discriminated against?" said Roberto Acosta, a 62-year-old retired gay man.
Mujica, who spent more than a decade in prison for his actions as a leftist guerrilla in the 1970s and still lives on a ramshackle flower farm in a poor neighborhood on the edge of Uruguay's capital, has pushed for a series of liberal laws recently. Congress agreed to decriminalize abortion, but Mujica had to suspend an effort to put the government in charge of the marijuana business, saying society has to reach consensus on that idea first.
Uruguay's Roman Catholic Church asked lawmakers to vote their conscience and challenged the label of "marriage equality" as a false pretext, saying it's "not justice but an inconsistent assimilation that will only further weaken marriage."
HuffingtonPost

Mystery Of 1938 'Time Traveler' With Cell Phone Solved?

The mystery surrounding a video that appears to show a young woman talking on a cell phone in 1938 may be solved. The explanation, if true, is sure to disappoint many conspiracy theorists.
The black-and-white footage shows a group of young people, possibly factory workers, walking out of a building. A brunette in a light-colored dress smiles into the camera, her hand pressed to her ear. She is holding what looks to be a large portable phone.
The Daily Mail reports that the clip surfaced online about a year ago and kicked off speculation about a time traveler caught on camera. Recently, a YouTube commenter who goes by the handle Planetcheck claimed to know the woman in the footage.
Though the version of the YouTube clip with Planetcheck's original comments has been removed, the Daily Mail and Yahoo! News blog The Sideshow copied some of Planetcheck's claims before the video disappeared.
According to the posts, Planetcheck professes to be the grandchild of the cell phone woman. Her name is Gertrude Jones, Planetcheck writes, and she was not a time traveler.
"She was 17 years old," Planetcheck writes. "I asked her about this video and she remembers it quite clearly. She says Dupont [the company that reportedly owns the factory in the video] had a telephone communications section in the factory. They were experimenting with wireless telephones. Gertrude and five other women were given these wireless phones to test out for a week. Gertrude is talking to one of the scientists holding another wireless phone who is off to her right as she walks by."
Wireless phones in the 1930s? YouTubers were skeptical.
Answering YouTube critics who questioned why such an amazing device received so little notice for several decades, Planetcheck blamed the factory owners:

Maybe they decided it was too far advanced for people and they abandoned the idea. ... Ideas are hatched, prototypes are made and sometimes like this phone they are forgotten until somebody discovers some long lost film of the world first wireless phone and marvels at it.

Planetcheck also claimed to still have the phone in a glass box somewhere. (We'll believe that when we see it.)
David Mikkelson, founder of Snopes.com, a website that specializes in analyzing popular Internet theories, told The Huffington Post in a telephone interview that videos like this one are as difficult to disprove as they are to prove.
"You can take any piece of WWII footage showing someone holding something to the side of their head talking, and claim it is a time traveling cell phone user," Mikkelson said. "Film clips aren't of sufficient resolution to see what the people are carrying. It could be anything from a handkerchief to a hearing aid, or who knows what. And this video is silent, so you can't even tell if the person is engaged in a two-way conversation."
Mikkelson added it is plausible Dupont could have been working on some sort of hand-held prototype, similar to a walkie-talkie. Still, he remained skeptical.
"I doubt it would have just been handed out to a young woman working at the factory," he said. "And why isn't there documentation?"
Neither Planetcheck nor Dupont could not be reached for comment.
A similar "time traveler" video captured the imaginations of conspiracy theorists in 2010. The clip consists of unreleased footage from a 1928 Charlie Chaplin film and shows a woman in the background walking while appearing to talk on a cell phone. Was she a time traveler, or was she just holding her hand up to her face as she passed in front of the camera?
And who could forget the photo of a 19th-century man who looks uncannily like actor Nicolas Cage? While some speculate that Cage is a time traveler, others joked that he might be a vampire. Cage has denied both rumors.
HuffingtonPost

US Fears N. Korea Launch, Aims to Calm Tempo

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Missile and launch components have been moved to the east coast of North Korea in the “last few days,” a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the information told CNN Thursday.
The apparent deployment comes amid further threatening statements by North Korea and heightened tensions in the region — a situation that “does not need to get hotter,” a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said.
The move of the missile and launch equipment could mean that Pyongyang, which unleashed another round of scathing rhetoric accusing the United States of pushing the region to the “brink of war,” may be planning a missile launch soon.
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Pentagon seeks to ‘turn the volume down’
Pentagon officials, while decrying North Korean saber-rattling, said recent announcements of U.S. military deployments in response to belligerent statements by North Korea may have contributed to the escalating tensions between the countries.
As the bombast reaches a fever pitch, the United States is refining its message toward North Korea. The Pentagon now says it is working to decrease the temperature as it maintains a frank and vigilant stance toward Pyongyang’s threats.
“We are trying to turn the volume down,” a Defense Department official said. Read full

N. Korea Missile {Foxnews}

News+Rescue

NLC Declares One-day Strike In Lagos, Abuja

Business activities would be paralysed in Lagos State and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, respectively, as the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has directed workers in the affected states to observe a work-free day on April 10 in solidarity with the Nigerian pensioners.

THISDAY learnt that the directive was issued by the NLC through a circular to its affiliates directing that national rallies be held in the state and Abuja simultaneously on the said date in support of the struggles of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP).
Already all affiliate unions and state councils across the country have begun mobilising workers in the affected states and the civil society groups to ensure a successful rallies.
The congress, while calling on members to actively participate in the rallies urged them not to forget that “an active worker today is a pensioner tomorrow” while reminding them of the slogan that “an injury to one is injury to all.”
NLC President, Mr. Abdulwaheed Omar, had earlier explained that the decision to embark on an industrial action was informed by the continued silence of the federal government over the plight of pensioners in the country.
The Central Working Committee (CWC) comprising presidents and general secretaries of affiliate unions of the congress had decried the growing level of corruption in the country and the crisis in the pension industry, stating that all efforts to get the attention of government including two letters to the presidency for intervention over the hardship faced by the nation’s senior citizens were fruitless.
The committee had expressed concern that despite the unprecedented scam in the pension regime and the raging war of words between the executive and the National Assembly, pensioners remain the main victims with a large number of pensioners not being paid their entitlements.
It lamented that the congress had exploited all the lawful channels of communication to the government hence its determination to ensure justice for its members who are owed billions of naira of pension arrears.
“The congress had written at least two letters to the presidency calling for its intervention in the pension crisis; coupled with the correspondences, the leadership of congress had reached out through other channels to the federal government; the congress leadership had also made public pronouncements on the avoidable, but painful pension crisis. The CWC noted  with dismay that the Presidency neither acknowledged the letters nor responded to the issues the leadership of the congress publicly raised on the plight of pensioners. Convinced that the congress had exploited all the lawful channels of communication to the government to no avail, concerned that despite the unprecedented scam in the pension regime and the raging war of words between the executive and the National Assembly, pensioners remain the main victims with a teeming number of pensioners not being paid, congress is certain that nobody wants to listen to the plight of pensioners.
Worried  that the continued silence of the government means more hardship for its members in the fold of the National Union of Pensioners, NUP, and determined to ensure justice for its members who are owed billions of pension arrears, the CWC resolved that on Wednesday, April 10, 2013, all NLC affiliate unions and state councils across the length and breadth of the country will mobilise workers on a protest march to the presidency and state government houses.”
Naij.com