The smoking ban is getting softer

What smokers leave behind them

The ban on cigarette vending machines is facing a turn out. Two new measures – the end of the vending machines and hiding the brand and logos on cigarette boxes- are set to be ditched this week, according to  Metro newspaper.

Among the people interviewed, many think that it won’t make a difference anyway. Helga Bastianello, 33-year-old who doesn’t smoke thinks, “If people want to smoke, they will smoke. It is not this kind of bans that will stop them”.

Backbenchers and trade groups have put a lot of pressure to reverse the ban. This led to a change of direction in the House of Commons. The reason for that: little evidence to show that those steps would have health benefits.

For many people who smoke, those type of actions wouldn’t have a positive impact. Valeria Marchetti, 29-year-old student at the University of Westminster, says, “When you are as addicted as me, covering the label doesn’t make any difference. If you want to smoke, you will smoke anyway”.

Even for the ones who don’t smoke, putting more bans wasn’t the main way of helping people to quit. “Covering the label is a ridiculous idea. It is a restriction to the consumer choice, in my opinion,” explains 21-year-old Alberto Furlan.

“Vending machines should be banned”

As far as the vending machines are concerned, even some of the smokers think that it would have been a good idea to put an end to them. According to Valeria Marchetti, “It could help people to quit smoking because it is less opportunities for smokers to buy cigarettes”.

Vending cigarettes machines is an easy way to encourage the under 21s to buy cigarettes. Therefore, many believe that preventing those machines from operating helps protect their health.

21-year-old Amo Shah claims, “How can you check people’s age when buying from a machine? I think they should definitely stop the use of those machines, I am not a big fan of them”.

Nowadays, most of the Governments in Europe are taking even more severe actions regarding the smoking issue. One of the last measures to deal with this public health problem was to insert really shocking images on the boxes.

Yet, not every one agrees regarding this action. Amo Shah, staff at the University of Westminster considers this measure as being “an attempt to influence someone’s decision too much”

Alberto Furlan thinks, “Images are more shocking than words. It is not the first time that such a thing is done and I am almost sure that it worked in other countries”.

Minister shifts goal posts

Kenya’s Agriculture Minister William Kipchirchir Ruto  has reversed his stand over the ‘Waki report’ on post election violence, says Standard newspaper.

The report summarizes five months of investigations into the post-election violence , which followed the announcement of the disputed 2007 presidential election results. In addition,it bears names of suspected perpetrators of the violence.

“We should implement the Waki report in a way that will enable us to know who organized and financed the killing of our fellow Kenyans.”

He quickly added, “The report should not be taken as the gospel truth but instead, instruments that are credible professional and honest be used to identify the real perpetrators of the post election violence.”

The Waki report was handed to President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Wednesday 15 October, KTN TV depicts.

The Pentagon leader has strongly rejected the report claiming that it was targeted at incriminating him.

Previous stand

The Pentagon leader and his Rift Valley Mp’s had formerly insisted that the report was rushed and failed to establish the root cause of the chaos.

Mr. Ruto is on record saying that Waki failed miserably, shows Standard Newspaper and Citizen TV.

He claimed that Waki compiled rumours, falsehoods, hearsays, innuendo and malice into a report, which he has presented as ‘The Waki report.’

When Kenya’s Prime Minister openly supported the report, Mr. Ruto was very displeased.

On KTN TV, he threatened to withdraw from his party taking away the Rift Valley voters’ block which constitutes of 6,987,036 people as indicated in the 1999 population census, shows Wikipidia.

This threat was however countered by members from the same country in the same news item.

Can There Be Substantial Peace Without Justice?

The Agriculture Minister called for local judges identifying those who planned, financed and organized the death of fellow Kenyans.

Individually, he was accused of leading and financing the genocidal actions in Rift Valley during the 2007 election crisis.

However, he said that if any evidence linking him to organizing or financing the ethnic cleansing is produced he will resign expecting no pardoning, says Standard newspaper.

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Internet problems plagueHarrow Campus

Internet problems plaguing Westminster University’s Harrow Halls since September might be resolved in two weeks, campus IT technician Jorge Brugos said.

Brugos was being optimistic when he said in a phonecall that the problem “could be fixed overnight”.

More realistically though, he said “I am hoping it will work by the 15th of December.”

This is a shorter wait than was Brugos had previously anticipated, as last month he said that students might have to wait until after Christmas for the internet to function properly.

This was because it was not viable to shut the internet down during term time, as the “high number of users accessing it every day” would have been deprived of the resource.

Two months without Facebook

Since the beginning of the academic year in September, students have been complaining that they cannot access sites such as Hotmail and the social network Facebook from their student accommodation.

A representative of Keycom, the company that supplies Internet to Harrow Campus, said at the time that they were unaware the problem still existed. “The engineers told us they had fixed it,” she said.

The problem, according to Brugos, might lie in the equipment in use at Keycom. He said: “Everything that could be done on this (Harrow Halls) end has been done.”

“The internet is far too slow and I’m unable to access my emails, which I regularly need. I get sent emails from my tutors and I cannot read them. It’s a nightmare,” said Emily Bamforth, a first year Fine Arts student living on Campus.

History and Solutions

The university issued an apology to the students in mid-October, saying the problem was due to faulty servers, and should be fixed “by next weekend”.

This isn’t the first time Harrow Campus has had problems with its Internet service. Raquel Villanueva, who lived in the halls in 2006, said: “The Internet was really really slow, and it wasn’t wireless… sometimes it would go out, it was out for the first two weeks.”

Meanwhile, students have found ways to work around the problem by using proxy websites for Hotmail.

Facebook Mobile is being used as a substitute for the full version of the social networking site, and students are walking to the nearby university library, which has not had any problems with its internet access.

Swiss approve prescription heroin

According with BBC news website, the Swiss voted to allow drug stores to prescribe heroin to help chronic addicts kick the deadly habit.

“Heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) is designed to help severely dependent heroin users who have fallen through the net provided by other treatment options,” the Federal Department of Home Affairs said on its website.

Magnus Arrival, a Swiss student in West Minster University said: ” If I were in my country I would vote for the proposal because I think that government needs to take care on people who couldn’t give up with heroine”.  He added: “I believe that numbers of new addicts are falling with medicalised heroin ”.

Karoline Strauss, a German Westmister student who used to live in Swiss for ten years said: ” Yes I agree with the new law”.  She adds: ” I am against every kind of drugs, but on the other hand I think that this treatment can help people without hope”.

An anonymous reader, made a comment about the article on the website Members 5 .  He writes : “In Liverpool, during the early 1990s, Dr John Marks used a special Home Office licence to prescribe heroin to addicts. Police reported a 96% reduction in acquisitive crime among a group of addict patients. Deaths from locally acquired HIV infection and drug-related overdoses fell to zero. But, under intense pressure from the government, the project was closed down. In its 10 years’ work, not one of its patients had died. In the first two years after it was closed, 41 died. Regards,N. “

Opponents of heroin prescription, like Sabine Geissbuhler of the association Parents Against Drugs, said that attitude is exactly what is wrong, timeonline has reported.  During the referendum campaign she declared: “I have four children, and I would never, never, put them into a heroin prescription programme. What kind of freedom is that? I’d rather they were dead.”

There were turned debates around this controversial treatment.

Legalised heroine program  is now a reality with overwhelming approval from Swiss voters who simultaneously rejected the decriminalization of marijuana has reported by Red Orbit.

Mobile phones more dangerous than passengers

Lethal mobile phone usage (source-www.freefoto.com)

A local student has strongly disagreed with US research showing that mobile phone calls distract drivers more than  the chattiest passenger.

“It depends first on the particular passenger in one’s company and secondly some phone calls only last a minute but you have the passenger stuck with you throughout the journey,” Sacha Fortune, 22, said.

“Passengers with a tendency of back seat driving can be very irritating with some practically grabbing the steering wheel hence more destructive than a person on hands free,” she added.

The research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, also shows that drivers using a hands-free device drifted out of their lanes and missed exits more frequently than drivers talking to a passenger.

A 1st year Business Administration Student could not agree more. “Some passengers talk too much with all this gestures completely distorting one’s driving. Hands free do the job much safer.”

“Passengers are safer to talk to because they are right there with you and can judge when to say what. On the other hand, callers cannot make a wise judgment and can easily break very bad or good news totally distracting the driver,” Phillip Kiplagat Koech, 26.

Experiments using driving simulators

Lee Strayer of the University of Utah and colleagues have found in a series of experiments using driving simulators  that chatting on a cell phone can slow the reaction times of young adult drivers to levels seen among senior citizens.

In addition, the Strayer simulators demonstrated that drivers using mobile telephones are as impaired as drivers who are legally drunk.

A local student however agreed with the research. “Talking to passengers is much safer because they have their eyes on the road too and can hence easily shut up when need be or sometimes even help when they see the driver needs to make a manoeuvre.” Dimple Gohil, 2nd year Graphic and Information Design.

Strayer’s team has videos showing drivers missing exits while on mobile phone headsets and showing that passengers interrupt conversations to help drivers exit correctly at www.psych.utah.edu/~strayer/passenger.wmv.

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Children encouraged to use ‘Facebook’

Screenshots of the new social networking next to the widely popular Facebook

A ‘Facebook’ site for children as young as five has sparked fears about safety and rung alarm bells among parents.

“I don’t want people to see my daughter,” says mother Bo Kyung Park.

The idea of strangers accessing her young child’s information is worrying.

“Personally, I am afraid of releasing her pictures and how other people could use them.”

The new site in question was created by a mother of three in order to keep in touch with other parents.

It also encourages children to “friend” each other so that they can play games and email.

Pupils are allowed to register without having a way to verify their identities, which leaves the site open to predators.

Ms. Park hopes her daughter will join a social networking site much later in life, but would be more open to this site if it were completely secure.

Esther Guy, who set up the site, has told reporters that the social network would be “self-policing”, with the parents who join supervising the entries.

The creator claims that security measures make it difficult for strangers to enter, but it may still be possible to access the site according to reports.

TOO YOUNG?

The first mass waves of users to join social networking sites were college-aged.

Older and more aware of the dangers, some people feel that joining at five is too young.

“They don’t know what can go wrong and they are just too innocent to everything.” says Facebook user Kriti Nandwani.

She opened her account when she was 18 even though she had known about the site a year before.

“I just didn’t really see the need for it till I was older.”

Doug Fodeman, co-founder of ChildrenOnline, an organisation that researches the behaviour of children on the web, recently told The Times that it is the worst way for children to socialise.

“Behind the anonymity of the screen, people say things they’d never say and do things they’d never do,” he says.

“One look at some of the humiliating, brutal posts on YouTube will confirm that. Children are even more susceptible.”

NO MORE PLAYTIME

University of Westminster student Sacha Fortune also has a similar view. Her niece has recently joined Facebook when she was six.

“I can’t imagine using Facebook that young. You’re going to be stuck inside even more.”

She thinks that going outside and playing with friends and toys will become history if the trend continues.

“It’s more important for college people but not for a little kid. You can see your friends at school when you are young.”

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MEDITATION VS. MEDICATION: HEAL YOUR WAY TO HAPPINESS

 

Left pic from Wikipedia, taken by User:Deepak, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 Germany License; Right pic taken from http://www.freeimages.co.uk

Meditation may be a better cure for depression than forking out money for NHS prescriptions and enduring lengthy waiting lists, according to a new medical study that appears today in The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

But it remains to be seen how these findings will change people’s attitudes – particularly young people – to alternative medicine in the tried and trusted world of traditional Western medicine.

“I have been suffering from depression for several years,” said 22-year-old Amanda*, a graduate of Lancaster University. 

She recalls episodes during her final exams in May: “I didn’t even go to one of my exams because I had a complete breakdown. The nurses at the University actually came to my room and had an intervention session with me.”

“I’ve been on medication after medication including Seroxat and Citalopram, and every time I come off’ it, I have a severe relapse,” Amanda said. “But I don’t think meditation is the answer.”

Medication or meditation?

“It depends on the severity of depression,” said Alberto Furlan, a 21-year-old Journalism student at Westminster University. “In lighter cases it might work, but not for people with severe depression.”

Wanjiru Karago, 24, an international student from Kenya, said: “I think meditation therapy could be more effective because sometimes the solution lies in sitting down and thinking about a situation, as opposed to chemicals being introduced into your body.”

“What people forget sometimes is that the whole thing about meditation and healing is not about becoming completely well but about accessing something within yourself,” said Juliusz Wodzianski, a reiki and spiritual healer who uses meditation in his line of work.

Greater chance of relapse with drug therapy

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy [MBCT], developed in 2002, has proven to be more effective than medication in improving patients’ quality of life, the BBC reports.

The study funded by the Medical Research Council [MRC] found that relapse after using anti-depressants occurred in 60% of long-term depressed patients, versus 47% of those using the new approach of Buddhist meditation techniques, according to the Metro newspaper.

The group-based MBCT is more effective because it teaches people skills for life, the Metro quotes Willem Kuyken, the Professor of Clinical Psychology and Co-Founder of the Mood Disorders Centre at the University of Exeter.

‘Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy’ cheaper and more effective

An estimated 3.5million people suffer from chronic depression in Britain, with 9 out of 10 admitting to having had at least one episode of depression in their life, according to a survey conducted by the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy (BACP).

More than £10billion is spent on cures for depression in the UK every year, with one in five patients visiting the doctor and one in ten visiting a therapist.

These new findings about MBCT by the MRC aim to reduce this figure by providing a cheaper and more effective, natural way to treat severe and recurring depression.

Amanda, who struggles to maintain a normal life in spite of her depression, remains skeptical about the new findings about MBCT.

She said: “Not that I am a fan of medication, but I need hard facts — very very hard facts — about how it was found to be better. There are a lot of therapies out there based on flimsy evidence.”

*name changed to protect source’s identity

 

Deng, Chinese’ Pride Again

Yaping Deng, a legendary Chinese table tennis player has succeeded in completing her postgraduate study at Cambridge University, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Pride of China

Deng’s achievement has made her an academic model for Chinese students who are striving for a degree in the UK and has become a hot topic among them.

University of Cambridge Picture Taken by Lei Yang

Weihan Chen, a Chevening scholarship recipient studying in King’s College University in London said:

“Deng has set up a model for us studying in the UK. In traditional Chinese views, sportsmen have strong muscles, but are academically weak. Deng shows that the most important elements for success are your ambition and persistence.”

Yaping Deng is named Small Giant in China. She stands at only 1.5m tall, but her talent is well recognised.

She has won four Olympic gold medals and 18 world championships.

Her most recent achievement was on 29th Nov. After 10 years of hard study, she gained the doctor’s degree in Land Economy at the University of Cambridge.

The news of her success spread fast as it was first reported by Xinhua news agency. Students studying in UK regarded her as the pride of China.

Academic Model

Jun Xu, a MPhil student studying in the Judge Business School of Cambridge said he had just got the news from his wife.

He searched the news on the website and thought the image of Deng on the graduate ceremony was so positive and energetic.

“I know some people doubt whether she got the degree properly. They were wondering whether it was her success in sports field that gave her some advantages,” Xu said.

” I am a student studying in Cambridge. It’s not easy to get a doctor’s degree here. I don’t believe she could benefit a lot from her past success.” Xu expressed his admiration for Deng.”

Professors from University of Cambridge gave high remarks on Deng’s final dissertation entitled “The impact of the Olympic games on Chinese development”.

Deng started from when she could not write 26 letters properly to finally realizing her dream of graduating from University of Cambridge.

She became the only top athlete who has gained a doctor’s degree in the eight-hundred-year history of Cambridge.

She is a perfect example of Chinese talent and gives all the Chinese students in the UK something to live up to.

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