Topnews: 2016

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Search » International Edition+ Women defend solo travels after murder of backpackers in Ecuador

"Yesterday I was killed."

So begins a Facebook post, now spreading virally, that's written from the perspective of two Argentinian female backpackers killed in Ecuador.

"I refused to be touched, and they smashed my skull with a stick," the post, written by Paraguayan student Guadalupe Acosta, goes on.

"They stabbed me and I was left to bleed to death. Like trash, they put me in a black polythene bag, wrapped with duct tape and threw me on to a beach, where hours later they found me."

Media reports say Maria Coni, 22, and Marina Menegazzo, 21, were sexually assaulted and killed in February while traveling in Ecuador. The pair were reportedly killed by two men who had offered them a place to stay.

The post written in their name has now had more than 730,000 shares over the past two weeks.

It's also sparked a social media debate over victim-blaming and women's right to safely travel alone.

The post was written to protest against those who implied that the two young women had invited trouble and their own brutal deaths through their own actions.

"But worse than death was the humiliation which came after," the post continues.

It criticizes the "useless questions" of people who blamed the women for "traveling alone."

The hashtag #viajosola, meaing "I travel alone," has since been picked up by thousands of people, mostly women, who are using it to share pictures of themselves on their solo travels, defending their right to explore the world without discrimination or harassment.

Many make the point that the victims weren't traveling alone, since they were together and were only seen as "alone" because they were unaccompanied by men.

"Here I am backpacking with my best friend, but for society I actually traveled alone."

Ecuadorian authorities have arrested two men allegedly linked to the murders.

Flydubai plane crashes in Russia; 62 aboard reported dead

A passenger jet circled a southern Russian airport in high winds and poor visibility before making a second, fatal attempt at landing Saturday, killing all 62 people aboard.

The flydubai Boeing 737 jet crashed at the Rostov-on-Don airport after traveling from Dubai, Russia's Southern Regional Emergency Center said Saturday.

All those on board died, authorities said.

Officials believe bad weather, which kept the plane from reattempting landing for more than two hours, likely caused the crash.

Psychologists on scene

The jet was carrying 55 passengers and seven crew members when it crashed, Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov said.

It was scheduled to touch down at 1:20 a.m. local time (6:20 p.m. ET), but went down at 3:50 a.m. (8:50 p.m. ET ), he said.

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The airport is closed, and medics and psychologists are on standby to assist family members, he said.

About 700 people are involved in the rescue operation, the Ministry of Emergency Situations said. The crash site is 800 feet (243 meters) from the airport runway, it said.

The ministry said investigators had ruled out terrorism as a cause of the crash at this stage and weather conditions were most-likely responsible.

Emergency staff found one of the plane's flight recorders amongst the wreckage, state news reported.

The plane's pilot circled the airport, waiting for the weather to clear before making a second attempt to land, but the aircraft's tail had clipped the runway, it said.

State media reported winds of 97 kph (60 mph) at the time of the crash.

The Russian Investigative Committee has launched an investigation, and is considering three potential causes, state-run Ria Novosti news agency reported.

"Different versions of the incident are being investigated, including crew error, technical failure, bad weather and other factors," it quoted committee chief Vladimir Markin as saying.

Emergency staff have found one of the plane's two flight recorders and were searching for the second, Ria Novosti reported.

Children among victims

Flydubai said no one survived.

"Flydubai very much regrets to confirm that the accident involving flight number FZ981 at Rostov-on-Don earlier today has resulted in 55 passenger fatalities including 33 women, 18 men and four children.

"The nationalities of the deceased passengers include 44 Russians, eight Ukrainians, two Indians and one Uzbekistani," the airline said.

Earlier, Russia's Emergencies Ministry had said 50 of the passengers and one of the crew members were Russian citizens. It has published a list of those on board.

Emergency workers are at the scene of the crash.

Flydubai has said that its primary concern was for the relatives of the victims.

"We don't yet know all the details of the accident but we are working closely with the authorities to establish the cause. We are making every effort to care for those affected and will provide assistance to the loved ones of those on board," flydubai CEO Ghaith Al Ghaith said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims, state news agency Tass reported.

Assistance to victims

Families of passengers killed will receive one million rubles (approximately USD$15,000) from the government, Russian state media reported. It said Sunday has been declared a day of mourning in the Rostov region.

A Russian Emergency Situations Ministry employee (L) tries to comfort a relative of the plane crash victims at the Rostov-on-Don airport.

Dubai's government media office posted a statement of sympathy on Twitter.

"UAE offers its deepest condolences to the families of the victims and to the Russian government and people for the tragic accident of flydubai," it said.

Boeing issued a statement saying its thoughts were also with the crash victims, their families and friends. "Boeing stands ready to provide technical assistance upon the request of government agencies conducting the investigation," it said.

Pilot disorientation?

CNN aviation expert Mary Schiavo said radar suggested the plane had flown three large, looping circles around the airport before it crashed.

"The poor visibility is probably the biggest clue," Schiavo said. "But this runway was lighted, it had good lighting at one end and passable lighting at the other and it did have an instrument landing system."

"With the clue of bad weather and making at least three different circles trying to reorient to this runway, it does look like pilot disorientation."

Meantime, Aviation Safety Analyst David Soucie agreed with the ministry's preliminary assessment that weather was likely to blame.

"It's not likely it was a mechanical failure," Soucie said. "It's most-likely a weather-related incident."

Rostov-on-Don airport would be closed until March 20, Russia 24 quoted officials as saying.

Until then, flights were redirected to the city of Krasnodar -- 141 miles south of the airport, it said.

CNN's Karen Smith and Alla Eshchenko contributed to this report.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Occasional fasting could help you live longer

How much -- or how little -- you eat could influence how long you live.

The idea of caloric control improving your health, and therefore your lifespan, is nothing new, but researchers are now hoping to accurately determine the type of diet that could make you live longer.

One team at the University of Southern California (USC) are reducing the calorie count as low as it can go, using specific foods to trick the human body into thinking it's fasting -- a process called fasting mimicry.

"Diet can have a remarkable effect on you," says Valter Longo, Professor of Gerontology at USC Davis, who has been long been researching the mechanisms behind human aging and has recently turned his attention to fasting.

"It can reprogram your body and put it on a path to live longer," says Longo.

Shutdown and regeneration

Fasting has been performed by communities and cultures for millennia and Longo's team are curious about the advantages.

Their idea follows on from the long running trend of caloric restriction, mostly known through diets such as the 5-2 diet and intermittent fasting. Longo tested the impact of fasting for five consecutive days every month, believing that when the body thinks it's in a state of fasting, it shuts down and goes into standby mode.

"As cells are killed and the body goes into standby, your stem cells switch on," says Longo. Once switched on, the stem cells can regenerate the lost cells and organ mass -- leaving you shiny and new.

When cells in the body age, their ratios change and Longo believes the body's reaction -- and repair methods -- to fasting help restore them to when you were younger. "You're killing the bad cells and regenerating with cells that are more functional."

Starvation strategies

In a 2015 study, Longo's team set a specific diet for human volunteers, which mimicked the effects of fasting over five consecutive days monthly, for three months. Trials were also conducted in mice.

Intermittent fasting: Should you exercise on empty?

People consumed approximately 1000 calories on day one and 725 calories for the remaining four days, but these numbers alone didn't determine the benefit.

"It's not just about reducing calories", says Longo. His diet is designed to include specific percentages of protein, fat and carbohydrates, for maximum effect. The food items used, however, were specific to the trial and if translated to the public would involve designing meals made up of the right combination of nutrients.

"The human fasting mimicking diet (FMD) program is a plant based diet program designed to attain fasting-like effects while providing micronutrient nourishment (vitamins, minerals, etc.) and minimize the burden of fasting," Longo said in the study.

After three months, the benefits were a reduction in body weight as well as certain risk factors for cardiovascular disease. There was also an increase in certain stem cells in the body.

"The diet is turning on the body's ability to renew itself," says Longo.

The team have since calculated that following the diet every three months could provide enough of an impact as effects are thought to last up to six months.

How does it work?

"When you fast, you lower protein and certain amino acids and you control pathways [in the body]," says Longo. The pathways he refers to are known as TOR, PKA and IGF pathways, which when controlled can switch on certain reactions inside the body causing immune cells to die and organs to shrink.

This activation, or reduction, of pathways is why the components of the diet, such a proteins, must also be controlled. "You won't activate the correct pathways," says Longo.

Step away from the burger: Why a 'Western' diet is bad for your health

Why a 'Western' diet could be bad for you

"When you make IGF less active, it reduces risk factors linked to diabetes and cardiovascular disease," says Miguel Toribio-Mateas, Chairman of the British Association for Applied Nutrition and Nutritional Therapy.

According to Toribio-Mateas, the results confirm earlier theories that "some hormone-like growth factors that are required during development to grow, then become promoting agents of aging after development and sexual maturity have been reached". He also believes the benefits are down to improved efficiency on a cellular level.

"Cells have a list of things to do every day,...like getting rid of toxins" says Toribio-Mateas. If their workload is then disrupted by the need to store excess calories, certain products can accumulate. "Regulating calories can have a very positive effect," he says. To him, diet underpins longevity.

Is it safe?

Unlike the 5-2 diet, which requires two days of low calories at any point in the week, Longo's diet involves fasting for five consecutive days, which requires much more willpower.

"Five days is safe: going on for longer is difficult to do outside of a clinic," says Longo.

More work needs to be done to fine tune the diet and determine meals that meet the criteria. Longo has since founded his own nutrition company. L-Nutra, to sell products that serve this purpose, which may be seen as a conflict of interest. He states that profits are going back into funding further research by his team.

"The results of the study are encouraging and warrant more research in this area," says Toribio-Mateas.