Dunya TV

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• US national debt hits $16 trillion
• Arms supplier to Syria spreading misery: Ban
• Visiting Pakistan with serious intent to resolve issues: Krishna
• FBI investigating Peshawar suicide blast: Ventrell
• Judge orders sex change for US murder convict
• UMass students nosh on 6,700-pound seafood stew
• Mysterious shipwreck washes onto Alabama shore
• Discovery of new compound claims Alzheimers cure
• Man tries to eat bogus $50 bills
• Coconut oil can cure tooth decay
• Binge drinking negates recovery from trauma
• Foolproof security at medical entry tests
• 9th class registration date extended till Sept 12
• CDA wraps up construction of jail in Islamabad
• Miranshah: 2 security men martyred in attack

US national debt hits $16 trillion Posted: The Treasury Department said Tuesday that the national debt has topped $16 trillion, the result of chronic government deficits that have poured more than $50,000 worth of red ink onto federal ledgers for every man, woman and child in the United States.The news was greeted with a round of press releases from Barack Obamas Republican rivals, who used the grim-but-expected news to criticize the president for the governments fiscal performance over his 3 1/2 years in office. Obama has presided over four straight years of trillion dollar-plus deficits after inheriting a weak economy from his predecessor, George W. Bush.We can no longer push off the tough decisions until tomorrow, said No. 2 House Republican Eric Cantor. Its time to address the serious fiscal challenges we face and stop spending money we dont have. Last summer, Cantor dropped out of a set of budget talks hosted by Vice President Joe Biden, citing the insistence of the White House on tax increases to help close deficits that require the government to borrow 33 cents of every dollar it spends.The spiraling debt means that lawmakers and the eventual winner of the White House in November will have to pass a law early next year to raise the governments borrowing cap from the current ceiling of $16.39 trillion. Passing such legislation last year proved enormously difficult and the nations credit rating suffered.First, however, lawmakers will try during a post-election lame duck session to renew Bush-era tax cuts and head off a round of forced budget austerity as automatic budget cuts are scheduled in January to slam both the Pentagon and domestic programs. Those cuts were required by another failed set of budget talks last fall by a bipartisan supercommittee.Sen. Rob Portman said: This debt will not only be a liability for our kids and grandkids, but economists also tell us that it will limit economic growth and kill millions of jobs now and in the future. Portman was a member of last years failed supercommittee, which deadlocked over taxes and cuts to popular benefit programs. The debt topped the $16 trillion mark on Friday.Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said the government will likely reach its debt limit at the end of the year. However, Geithner has said he will be able to employ various extraordinary measures to keep the government operating until sometime early next year. Geithner would need to use these measures if Congress, as expected, fails to tackle the debt limit by years end.Last years prolonged impasse between the Republican-dominated House and Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House contributed to a move by the ratings agency Standard & Poors to lower Americas AAA bond rating for the first time in the countrys history, nudging it down a notch to AA for long-term securities.Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney promises sharp spending cuts and a balanced budget by 2020 if he wins the White House, but has provided little detail about how that might be accomplished. For his part, Obama has declined to tackle the spiraling growth of benefit programs like Medicare and the Medicaid health program for the poor and disabled. His proposals to hike taxes on upper income earners have been repeatedly rejected by Republicans, but he promises to insist on them if he wins re-election.

Arms supplier to Syria spreading misery: Ban Posted: UN leader Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday accused countries who send arms to Syria of spreading misery as he called for greater international efforts to end the war and ease a mounting humanitarian crisis.Those who provide arms to either side are only contributing to further misery -- and the risk of unintended consequences as the fighting intensifies and spreads, Ban told the 193-member UN General Assembly.Ban did not name any country but Russia is President Bashar al-Assads main arms supplier while UN officials say Iran has made arms deliveries to his forces. The Syrian government accuses Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey of arming the opposition. The United States and Britain say they give non-lethal assistance to the opposition.The UN secretary general said there had to be greater international support behind the efforts of new UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to end the 18-month-old conflict, which activists say has left more than 26,000 dead. The United Nations says about 20,000 have died.Brahimi said in his first comments to the UN assembly since replacing Kofi Annan as special envoy on Saturday that the death toll in Syria was staggering and also called for united efforts on the conflict.Brahimi said he would go to Damascus in a few days but warned that the conflict is deteriorating steadily.The death toll is staggering, the destruction is reaching catastrophic proportions and the suffering of the people is immense, he said in a brief speech to the assembly.The future of Syria will be built by its people and none other, the 78-year-old diplomat added. The support of the international community is indispensable and very urgent. It will only be effective if all pull in the same direction.Regional leaders have a key role to play in creating the conditions conducive to a solution, Ban told the assembly.Though a number of initiatives have been started to end the conflict, Ban said missing in all of them is a unity of effort that will have an impact on the ground.Annan quit his six-month bid to end the war complaining at the lack of international support to make Assad carry out his peace plan. Russia and China vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions which condemned Assads crackdown and threatened sanctions.Ban appealed for more money for a UN fund for Syria, saying: The humanitarian situation is grave and deteriorating both in Syria and in neighboring countries affected by the crisis. He highlighted that the UN has called for $180 million for action inside Syria but only received half this amount so far.Water, shelter, blankets, hygiene kits and medicines are desperately needed.Governments have generously opened their borders and accepted their responsibility to shelter those who have sought refuge. They urgently need support, Ban said.The UN refugee agency said earlier that more than 100,000 people fled Syria in August, a record since the start of the uprising against Assad in March last year.The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says that 235,000 people have registered in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. UN officials believe that a similar number may have left without seeking to register.The agency said some 1,000 Syrian refugees were crossing into Jordan and about 500 Syrian Kurds are arriving in Iraq each day. Hundreds of Iraqis who had sought refuge in Syria have also fled.Lebanon has taken in about 59,000 Syrians, while Turkey now has more than 80,400 Syrian refugees, with about 8,000 waiting at the border.

Visiting Pakistan with serious intent to resolve issues: Krishna Posted: Indian External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said that he was going to Pakistan with “greater optimism”, carrying a message of India’s ”serious intent” to resolve outstanding bilateral issues through dialogue.“I will take with me the message of serious intent of the government and people of India to resolve outstanding issues between India and Pakistan through dialogue in an atmosphere free from terror and violence,” he said when asked about his expectation from the visit.The minister also noted that the recent meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Tehran, has “created right kind of backdrop”.

FBI investigating Peshawar suicide blast: Ventrell Posted: During a daily press briefing, US State Department’s spokesperson Patrick Ventrell said on Tuesday that Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was leading the probe of the suicide blast that occurred in Peshawar at a vehicle of US consulate.Ventrell said that whenever US personnel are involved in the attacks US does their own investigation and it is collaborating with its Pakistani partners. He also thanked Pakistani government and law enforcement agencies, saying “we commend the Pakistani security officials who saved lives, including the lives of our two personnel.”The spokesperson said that no one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack and US is not going to speculate on who may be responsible. FBI is probing the matter.

Judge orders sex change for US murder convict Posted: A federal judge Tuesday ordered state prison officials to provide a taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgery to a transgender inmate serving life in prison for murder.U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf ruled in the case of Michelle Kosilek, who was born as a man but has received hormone treatments and lives as a woman in an all-male prison. Robert Kosilek was convicted of murder in the killing of his wife in 1990.Wolf is believed to be the first federal judge to order prison officials to provide the surgery for a transgender inmate.Kosilek first sued the Massachusetts Department of Correction 12 years ago. Two years later, Wolf ruled that Kosilek was entitled to treatment for gender-identity disorder, but stopped short of ordering surgery. Kosilek sued again in 2005, arguing that the surgery is a medical necessity.In his ruling Tuesday, Wolf found that surgery is the only adequate treatment for Kosileks serious medical need.The court finds that there is no less intrusive means to correct the prolonged violation of Kosileks Eighth Amendment right to adequate medical care, Wolf wrote in his 126-page ruling.Prison officials have repeatedly cited security risks in the case, saying that allowing her to have the surgery would make her a target for sexual assaults by other inmates.But Wolf found that the DOCs security concerns are either pretextual or can be dealt with by the DOC. He said it is up to prison officials to decide how and where to house Kosilek after the surgery.

UMass students nosh on 6,700-pound seafood stew Posted: A year after starting the semester with a two-ton stir fry, staff and students at the Amherst campus on Monday made and chowed down on a nearly 6,700-pound seafood stew.The stew was prepared in the same custom-built, 14-foot pan used to make the stir fry last year. The stew included 1,000 pounds of mussels, lobster, clams, haddock and salmon from sustainable sources in New England and Alaska.It also contained 1,725 pounds of half and half, 1,137 pounds of potatoes, 575 pounds of onions and 145 pounds of bacon, among other ingredients.Ken Toong, executive director of auxiliary services, says only vegetables from local farmers and the schools student-run garden were used.

Mysterious shipwreck washes onto Alabama shore Posted: Hurricane Isaac has washed the remains of a blockade-runner vessel onto the shores of an Alabama beach, and many believe it could be a Civil War era vessel, dating back to 1862, according to the Birmingham News.However, a debate has ensued over what era exactly the shipwreck is from.Look what Isaac uncovered reads a Facebook post from Meyer Vacation Rentals, a local real estate company that posted several pictures of the wreckage on their fan page.A number of Confederate ships attempted to circumvent a Union Navy blockade of Mobile Bay during the Civil War. And some believe the wreckage may belong to the Monticello, a ship that burned and sank while trying to break the blockage during the war.This is actually the fourth time parts of the wreckage have become visible over the years, after it first made an appearance following Hurricane Camille in 1969. It reappeared in 2004 after Hurricane Ivan and again in 2008 after Hurricane Ike.Based on what we know of ships lost in that area and what Ive seen, the Monticello is by far the most likely candidate, Museum of Mobile marine archaeologist Shea McLean told the Birmingham News back in 2008. You can never be 100 percent certain unless you find the bell with Monticello on it, but this definitely fits.Still, theres no consensus on just how old the 136 foot long ship actually is, with some speculating that it may be a rum runner that sunk during the prohibition era of the 1930s.Either way, its quite interesting. This is the most visible it has been in recent years. Eventually the shifting sands will pull it back under the beach, where it will slumber until another storm is powerful enough to bring it back to the surface, the Meyer Vacation Rentals post continues.

Discovery of new compound claims Alzheimers cure Posted: Scientists at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio claim discovery of a new compound, which they believe could one day cure Alzheimer’s disease.They hope the compound could help Alzheimer’s sufferers regain their memory and other vital brain functions under a new treatment.“It was shown to be effective in preventing the progression of Alzheimer’s. It restored functions in the model that we tested. A lot more research needs to be done, but there is major potential,” a newspaper quoted lead scientist Professor Mohamed Naguib as saying.The Cleveland Clinic scientists came across the powerful compound while undertaking tests on a drug to control neurological pain for chemotherapy patients.They discovered that the chemical mixture had anti-inflammatory properties, which they believed could be effective in treating a range of other conditions, most notably Alzheimer’s disease.Tests proved to be very positive – and hopes are now high that further research could lead to a mass-market drug.In results published online in the Neurobiology Of Aging, the compound MDA7 was found to interact with receptors in the brain that play a role in the neuro-degenerative processes in Alzheimer’s.As a result, the development of the disease could be limited. Treatment with the compound restored cognition, memory and synaptic plasticity – a vital neurological building block on which learning and memory are based.“Cleveland Clinic dedicated two years of research into the examination of this compound and our findings show it could represent a novel therapeutic target in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Prof Naguib, head of Anaesthesiology at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.“Development of this compound as a potential drug for Alzheimer’s would take many more years, but this is a promising finding worthy of further investigation,” he added.Alzheimer’s is an irreversible, fatal brain disease that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills.There is currently no cure for the condition, which accounts for two-thirds of dementia cases.

Man tries to eat bogus $50 bills Posted: The Genesee (JEN-uh-see) County Sheriffs Office says deputies were called to Darien Lake Theme Park and Resort on Sunday night after Larry Jones, of Buffalo, bought french fries with a $50 bill.Deputies say a park employee determined the bill was counterfeit and called security. While being taken away, deputies say Jones stuffed five counterfeit bills into his mouth and tried to eat them.Security officers retrieved the bills before Jones swallowed them.Jones was charged with possessing a forged instrument and tampering with evidence and sent to the county jail with no bail. It couldnt be determined if he had a lawyer.

Coconut oil can cure tooth decay Posted: Researchers from the Athlone Institute of Technology, Ireland, tested the antibacterial action of coconut oil in its natural state and coconut oil that had been treated with enzymes, in a process similar to digestion.It could be incorporated into commercial dental care products, say scientists.They found that enzyme-modified coconut oil strongly inhibited the growth of most strains of Streptococcus bacteria which commonly inhabit the mouth, including Streptococcus mutans - an acid - producing bug that is a major cause of tooth decay.Damien Brady who is leading the research at Athlone, said: Dental carries is a commonly overlooked health problem affecting 60-90 percent of children and the majority of adults in industrialised countries.Additional testing by the Athlone Institute found that enzyme-modified coconut oil was also harmful to the yeast Candida albicans that can cause thrush.Researchers suggest that enzyme-modified coconut oil has potential as a marketable antimicrobial which could be of particular interest to the oral health care industry, according to an Athlone statement.Incorporating enzyme-modified coconut oil into dental hygiene products would be an attractive alternative to chemical additives, particularly as it works at relatively low concentrations. Also, with increasing antibiotic resistance, it is important that we turn our attention to new ways to combat microbial infection, added Brady.These findings were presented at the Society for General Microbiologys Autumn Conference at the University of Warwick, UK.

Binge drinking negates recovery from trauma Posted: Heavy drinkers not only face a higher risk of car accidents and domestic violence, but alcohol also actually rewires the brain, negating recovery from a traumatic experience also, says a US research.Theres a whole spectrum to how people react to a traumatic event, said study author Thomas Kash, assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.Its the recovery that were looking at - the ability to say this is not dangerous anymore. Basically, our research shows that chronic exposure to alcohol can cause a deficit with regard to how our cognitive brain centres control our emotional brain centres, said Kash, the journal Nature Neuroscience reports.A history of heavy alcohol abuse could impair a critical mechanism for recovering from a trauma, and in doing so put people at greater risk for PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and alcohol abuse, said National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) scientist Andrew Holmes, who conducted the study with Kash, according to a North Carolina statement.Over a month, researchers gave one group of mice doses of alcohol equivalent to double the legal driving limit in humans. A second group of mice was given no alcohol. The team then used mild electric shocks to train all the mice to fear the sound of a brief tone.When the tone was repeatedly played without the accompanying electric shock, the mice with no alcohol exposure gradually stopped fearing it. The mice with chronic alcohol exposure, on the other hand, froze in place each time the tone was played, even long after the electric shocks had stopped.The pattern is similar to what is seen in patients with PTSD, who have trouble overcoming fear even when they are no longer in a dangerous situation. The PTSD is a debilitating condition that follows a terrifying event. Often, its victims have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal and feel emotionally numb.

Foolproof security at medical entry tests Posted: Rawalpindi District administration announced the decision in a meeting held in DCO office.In the meeting, the participants were told that security personnel would be deployed in the venues where the entry tests would be conducted.The centres for medical entry test include Government Post-graduate College for Women Satellite Town, Government College for Boys Satellite Town, Siddique Public School Sixth Road, and Ideal Cambridge School Sixth Road.On the day of the test, traffic on the roads going to the selected venues will be diverged to other roads, while the roads on which examination-centres are located will be entirely closed for traffic.Shuttle service will also run from Sixth Road to carry the candidates and those accompanied by them to the examination-centres.

9th class registration date extended till Sept 12 Posted: Rawalpindi Board of Intermediate and secondary Education (RBISE) has extended the last date of registration for all 9th grade students till 12 September respectively.According to Board spokesman Arsalan Ali Cheema this is last extension for 9th class Students and after that no further extension would be made for students and all Educational institute must registered their students till last date.

CDA wraps up construction of jail in Islamabad Posted: Interior Minister Rehman Malik, on assumption of charge of his ministry in the incumbent government had expressed his desire for building a jail in Islamabad wherein rooms equipped with all modern facilities were to be constructed for VIPs inmates of jail.Sources told Online such rooms were meant for those politicians who are kept in jail on the charges of corruption or on some political grounds as the old Adiala jail was not found upto the standard.Sources told CDA had neither given clearance chit to the land allocated for jail so far nor worked out PC-1 on this count despite expression of desire by the interior minister on several occasions for construction of jail in Islamabad.Sources said interior ministry had been informed in this regard.

Miranshah: 2 security men martyred in attack Posted: Two security personnel were martyred when some terrorists assaulted their vehicle in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA) area in Tuesday’s wee hours.According to the military sources, the vehicle of security forces was on a routine patrol in Miranshah area of Datta Khel, when it came under terrorist attack; however, the personnel returned the fire killing a terrorist.According to sources, the exchange of gunfire lasted for half an hour, which killed two security men and injured others, who have been shifted to a nearby hospital for medical treatment.Curfew is continuously in force in the entire area and and the search for terrorists is underway.

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