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| Anheuser-Busch Meets Climate Leaders Goal - Video Anheuser-Busch Meets Climate Leaders Goal feedproxy.google.com |
Ageing fitness fans swamp Japan's parks Exercise boom among over-65s as country battles rising welfare bill of older populationNot even a freezing afternoon can tempt Yusaku Hosoe to retreat to the warmth of his home. He and a dozen friends are lured to Kukizaki park by a new interest in keeping fit, their exertions punctuated by peals of laughter that echo across the deserted children's playground nearby.There are no dumbbells or treadmills at the park in Tsukuba, a university town north of Tokyo, just a few pieces of equipment specially designed to strengthen muscles and improve posture and balance.If those sound like modest goals, it is because most of these amateur athletes are in their 70s. They are part of a growing band of Japanese retirees who are taking over public parks that were once the preserve of toddlers and their mothers.The boom in workout classes and exercise equipment for "silver" athletes is being fuelled by Japan's skewed demographics. More than a fifth of the country's 127 million people are aged over 65 – including 40,000 centenarians – while the declining birthrate means 40% of Japanese will be above retirement age by the middle of the century.In suburban playgrounds that once reverberated to the sound of children at play, you are as likely to find a group of septuagenarians doing pushups, stretching, and feeling their way across knobbly reflexology mats.Faced with the longest life expectancy in the world, a ballooning public debt and a soaring welfare bill, Japan is hoping that regular, if gentle, exercise will keep more over-65s out of retirement homes and hospitals."We built these exercise areas to promote fitness among senior citizens and, we hope, bring down healthcare costs," says Hiroko Asano, of Tsukuba council's senior services division."We show beginners how to use the equipment, and then leave them to it. The idea is that they can come any time, alone or with friends, and make it part of their routine."Tsukuba's two special fitness parks, which opened last month at a cost of 3m yen (£20,000) each, are already proving popular with the town's older residents."It's a lot more fun to work out with friends," says Hosoe, a 74-year-old former civil servant. "It's not just about wanting to stay fit into old age, but about having a laugh and helping each other out."Nationwide, the number of pieces of workout equipment for the elderly has tripled since the late 1990s to well over 15,000, according to the government.While the proportion of children under 13 who make daily visits to neighbourhood playgrounds fell from 50% in 1971 to 34% in 2007, the number of elderly people using them has doubled.The parks also perform a crucial social service in a country where an increasing number of people live alone. By 2025 more than a fifth of households will comprise an elderly person living alone or an elderly couple, according to the national institute of population and social security research in Tokyo."The reason is the trend towards marrying late or not at all, and the fact that many elderly people will live alone rather than with their children after their spouse dies," the institute's Hachiro Nishioka said.Few of the people who work out at Kukizaki or any of Japan's dozens of other renovated parks harbour ambitions to emulate 74-year-old Tsutomu Tosaka, Japan's "masters' bodybuilding" champion."This isn't a cardiovascular workout," says Masato Saijo, director of a physical fitness association that has installed equipment in several parks where swings and climbing frames have fallen into disrepair. "The idea is to work on important muscles that are at risk of atrophying in old age. After we teach them how to use the equipment they're on their own. It teaches them to be more independent."Japanese society tends to view old people as precious objects who need to be kept indoors and spoiled. But the best way to stay healthy and active is to spend more time outside. We are animals after all."JapanHealth & wellbeingOlder peopleFitnessJustin McCurryguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Lawyer in YouTube murder plot video hired his own assassins – UN It was the murder that spawned a macabre YouTube sensation and threatened to Âtopple Guatemala's government.Hitmen shot dead Rodrigo Rosenberg, a lawyer, in Guatemala City soon after he recorded a sombre video blaming his imminent assassination on President Ã…lvaro Colom and other senior officials.The 18-minute testimonial – which surfaced at the funeral – was uploaded to the internet and triggered a political hurricane in the central American country. Now, in a bizarre twist, it is alleged Rosenberg masterminded his own murder to frame the president. A UN investigation has concluded the lawyer, depressed over personal problems and angry with the government, sacrificed his own life in an elaborate sting."Who planned the act? We have to conclude that it was Rodrigo Rosenberg himself," Carlos Castresana, head of the UN commission, told a stunned country . "He decided to sacrifice his life in exchange for a change in the country. There can be no other explanation."In a news conference the president, who faced protests and resignation calls, said he had been vindicated and that the country could move on.Since May Rosenberg's video has been broadcast repeatedly on TV, sold on DVD, gone viral on YouTube and attracted so many online viewers some sites crashed.The 47-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer, seated behind a desk and gazing at the camera, said: "If you are watching this message it is because I have been murdered by Alvaro Colom." He said his life was in danger over a corruption scam involving Colom, the president's wife and senior officials.In a plot twist worthy of Agatha Christie investigators said Rosenberg made the recording knowing that two days later, on May 10, assassins he had hired would ambush him near his home. He was shot three times in the head, once in the neck and once in the back. He apparently hoped the video would render him a martyr.After the video surfaced the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, a UN panel set up to investigate crimes during Guatemala's civil war, launched an investigation supported by local prosecutors.It found that Rosenberg was distraught over an ugly divorce, the death of his mother and the murder of a client, Khalil Musa, and his daughter, Marjorie, who was Rosenberg's girlfriend. The lawyer blamed government officials for the double slaying, which he linked to a money laundering plot.According to the investigation he asked two brothers, cousins of his first wife, to help him find a hitman, citing a problem with a supposed extortionist. Unknown to the cousins Rosenberg himself was the target. "They received his request and looked for someone capable," said Castresana.Investigators said the brothers, Francisco and Estuardo Valdes Paiz, asked the head of security at their pharmaceutical company to find a hitman to do the job for $40,000. With one of the world's highest murder rates Guatemala has abundant assassins.The commission head said Rosenberg bought two cellphones: one to communicate with his killers and another to leave threatening messages on his own personal phone. He apparently hoped the video would render him a martyr and open a Pandora's box which would topple the government.Conservative foes of the leftist president did rally against Colom, whose main support is among indigenous Mayan poor, but he held on to power.GuatemalaUnited NationsYouTubeRory Carrollguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Haiti earthquake survivors face disease threat • Mission to get 3,500 more troops and police • US helicopters touch down at presidential palaceUS navy helicopters landed on the grounds of Haiti's damaged presidential palace today greeted by cheers from earthquake victims as the UN security council voted to send 3,500 extra troops and police to assist in the recovery work.Haitians jammed the fence of the palace grounds in the capital, Port-au-Prince, as scores of troops took up positions on the lawns of the presidential palace."We are happy that they are coming, because we have so many problems," Fede Felissaint, a hairdresser, told the Associated Press."If they want, they can stay longer than in 1915," he added, a reference to the start of a 19-year US military presence in Haiti.The American contingent arrived as the UN security council unanimously approved 3,500 more troops and police to reinforce the UN's 9,000-strong mission in Haiti to ensure security after a magnitude-7 earthquake killed an estimated 200,000 people.The head of UN peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, said the extra soldiers were essential because of the "tremendous" number of requests to escort humanitarian convoys, and in case the security situation deteriorates.Just four blocks from the palace, hundreds of looters rampaged through the city's downtown area. People in one hillside Port-au-Prince district blocked off access to their street with cars and asked local young men to patrol for looters.Rescuers continued to find survivors seven days afer the earthquake. International rescue teams pulled two Haitian women from a collapsed university building using machinery to cut away debris.The UN head of humanitarian operations, John Holmes, said not all 15 planned UN food distribution points were up and running yet. The UN World Food Programme said it expected to boost operations to feed 97,000 people on Monday but needed 100m prepared meals over the next 30 days. The US military says it can now get 100 flights a day through the airport – up from 60 last week – but still could do with more. Troops parachuted pallets of supplies to a secured area outside the city yesterday rather than clog the airport.The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, praised the "essential role" of the US, moving to defuse tension between the US and other countries in the confusing scramble to co-ordinate the enormous relief effort.Sarkozy said France was "fully satisfied" by the co-operation between the US and France, and acknowledged the "exceptional mobilisation of the United States on Haiti's behalf".The spread of disease has become a major concern in Haiti, medical experts saidtoday, as relief groups struggled to speed up the delivery of supplies to hungry and thirsty earthquake survivors.Medical experts said many survivors had multiple fractures and internal injuries. Medical teams at mobile hospitals that have been overwhelmed by the casualties warned of the immediate threats of tetanus and gangrene and the spread of measles, meningitis and other infections.In Haiti, where Aids, tuberculosis and malaria are rampant, children are malnourished and hygiene is already a challenge, the quake has added potentially lethal infections, broken bones, internal injuries and other health complications."By any stretch of the imagination it is going to be incredibly difficult. The population in Haiti was already vulnerable and faced enormous health threats," one expert said.Despite reports of lawlessness, US military officials said violence was isolated and not impeding the aid mission.As the US military and relief groups struggle to speed up delivery of aid, thousands were leaving the capital, having lost patience with the massive but ponderous aid effort. Most of those fleeing said they were heading to small farms run by relatives."We've got no more food and no more house, so leaving is the only thing to do," Livena Livel, a 22-year-old street vendor, told Associated Press. She was going to her father's house near the town of Les Cayes, four hours south of Port-au-Prince."At least over there we can farm for food," she said, carrying her one-year-old daughter, Othmeline.Livel and the six relatives leaving with her said they'd scraped together the last of their money to pay for the trip. With petrol scarce, bus drivers have ramped up fares, forcing some to pay more than three days' wages for a seat.HaitiNatural disasters and extreme weatherHealthInternational aid and developmentMark Tranguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Home sales rose in '09 as prices plunged 12 pct. WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of previously occupied homes rose in 2009 for the first time in four years, despite a December slump that was due to a tax credit that had caused many buyers to complete sales earlier.... hosted.ap.org |