A row has erupted in the US after Congressman Todd Akin said women’s bodies were naturally able to prevent pregnancy in the case of “legitimate rape”.
Todd Akin, who is also running as Republican candidate for the Senate, made the comments in a TV interview to explain his strict views on abortion.
He later said he had “misspoken” but his Democratic rival said the comments were “beyond comprehension”.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he disagreed with the view.
During the interview for KTVI-TV, Todd Akin was asked about his no-exceptions view on abortion, a highly charged issue in the US, and on whether he would like abortion to be banned even if the pregnancy was the result of rape.
He replied: “It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that is really rare.
“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.
“But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”
A row has erupted in the US after Congressman Todd Akin said women's bodies were naturally able to prevent pregnancy in the case of "legitimate rape
The interview has sparked a furious reaction in the US, with critics attacking both Todd Akin’s scientific view and his reference to “legitimate rape”.
Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill said it was “beyond comprehension that someone can be so ignorant about the emotional and physical trauma brought on by rape”.
“The ideas that Todd Akin has expressed about the serious crime of rape and the impact on its victims are offensive.”
Claire McCaskill, who is trailing Todd Akin in opinion polls for the Missouri seat, said on Twitter that as a former prosecutor she had personally handled hundreds of rape cases.
On blogs and Twitter, users have also poured scorn on his biological view, and expressed concern that he is a member of the House Committee on Science.
Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, told AP radio that the comments were “flat-out astonishing” and that such language was “intended to shame women”.
A spokesman for Mitt Romney said that both the candidate and his running mate, Paul Ryan, disagreed with Todd Akin, and stressed that “a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape”.
Todd Akin later issued a statement saying he had “misspoken” in his “off the cuff” remarks, though did not specify on which points.
He said the interview “does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year”.
Todd Akin also reconfirmed that he “believes deeply in the protection of all life and I do not believe that harming another innocent victim is the right course of action”.
The six-term congressman for Missouri is a long-time vocal opponent of relaxing abortion laws.
In 2011, he co-sponsored a controversial bill that would have limited the government help available to women seeking abortions in the case of rape to cases of “forcible rape”.
After a public outcry, the House Republican party was made to change this language.
Echinacea is an herbal remedy that should not be given to children under 12, the UK’s drugs watchdog has warned parents.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in UK said there was a small risk of severe allergic reactions and this outweighed any perceived benefits.
Some people take the tablets to reduce the severity of cold and flu.
Echinacea is an herbal remedy that should not be given to children under 12, the UK's drugs watchdog has warned parents
The MHRA said it was a precautionary measure and older children and adults could continue to use echinacea.
It said young children were at heightened risk of allergic reactions such as rashes, hives, difficulty in breathing and even potentially fatal anaphylactic shock.
Richard Woodfield, the head of herbal policy at the MHRA, said: “This is not a serious safety issue, but parents and carers need to be aware that children under 12 could have a low risk of developing allergic reactions.
“The measures being taken are precautionary in nature. Parents should not worry if they have given echinacea to children under 12 in the past.”
Licensed products containing echinacea, some of which are aimed at children, will have to be labelled with the warning.
Firefighters in Greece are battling a large forest fire sweeping across the eastern Aegean island of Chios.
The fire began in the early hours of Saturday and has been fuelled by gale force winds.
Authorities said that by Monday the blaze had destroyed about 7,000 hectares (16,000 acres) of forest and farmland.
Residents of nine villages and hamlets were evacuated from their homes over the weekend as the fire approached.
Firefighters in Greece are battling a large forest fire sweeping across the eastern Aegean island of Chios
Chios lies north-east of the capital, Athens, off the coast of Turkey.
The island is famous for its production of mastic, a natural, gum-like resin with a distinctive flavor produced only by trees on certain sections of the island.
Used as a natural chewing gum, a cooking spice and for pharmaceutical and cooking purposes, mastic resin is a major source of income for the islanders.
The strong winds were hampering efforts to extinguish the fires, despite the presence of several hundred firefighters, soldiers and volunteers, as well as firefighting planes and helicopters.
Wildfires are common during Greece’s long, hot summers, though some are believed to be started on purpose.
A further five forest and brush fires broke out on Monday across Greece, the Associated Press news agency reports, while fire crews continued to fight six fires already burning in other parts of the country.
The government has requested the assistance of water-bombing aircraft from Spain and Italy to help with the summer blazes.
Alice in Wonderland fans have been marking the 150th anniversary of the fateful boat trip that saw the genesis of the children’s tale.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is, on one level at least, the story of a girl who disappears down a rabbit hole to a fantastic place full of bizarre adventures.
Charles Dodgson, a mathematician at Christ Church, Oxford, first told his surreal story to the daughters of dean Henry Liddell as they rowed down the Thames.
After the boating trip, 10-year-old Alice Liddell badgered Dodgson to write it down and Alice in Wonderland – under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll – was born. The heroine follows a talking white rabbit, meets the Queen of Hearts and plays croquet using flamingos as mallets.
Since the 1960s there has been a trend for readers to identify an underlying drug theme in the book.
The Cheshire Cat disappears leaving only the enigmatic grin behind. Alice drinks potions and eats pieces of mushroom to change her physical state. The caterpillar smokes an elaborate water pipe. The whole atmosphere of the story is so profoundly disjointed from reality – surely drugs must have had an influence? After all this was the era of legal opium use.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is the story of a girl who disappears down a rabbit hole to a fantastic place full of bizarre adventures
Jefferson Airplane’s 1967 psychedelic anthem White Rabbit runs with the drug theme.
“When the men on the chessboard get up / And tell you where to go / And you’ve just had some kind of mushroom / And your mind is moving low / Go ask Alice, I think she’ll know.”
The Matrix provides a film reference point. “You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
The drug link is a homespun thing. You’ll find it on a host of random forums.
But the experts are usually skeptical. Lewis Carroll wasn’t thought to have been a recreational user of opium or laudanum, and the references may say more about the people making them than the author.
“The notion that the surreal aspects of the text are the consequence of drug-fuelled dreams resonates with a culture, particularly perhaps in the 60s, 70s and 80s when LSD was widely-circulated and even now where recreational drugs are commonplace,” says Dr. Heather Worthington, Children’s Literature lecturer at Cardiff University.
“It is the deviant aspects that continue to fascinate because the text is unusual, innovative, and hard to grasp so turning to the author offers simplicity and excitement simultaneously.”
The mushroom is “magic” only in the context of the story. And the caterpillar is merely smoking tobacco through a hookah.
The shadow hanging over anyone reading the story is the issue of Lewis Carroll’s sexuality. A successful photographer, many of his surviving shots are of children, often semi-dressed or naked.
To many modern minds, a man who regularly formed friendships with young girls is inherently suspicious.
“Lewis Carroll’s personal life intrigues adult readers because Alice in Wonderland is a text for children but the notion that the author photographed, however innocently, young girls in a state of undress is, to our modern eyes, unpalatable,” says Heather Worthington.
“That Alice was based on a child that Carroll knew adds yet another layer of interest, or suspicion, depending on how you look at it.”
But Lewis Carroll was living at a time when childhood innocence was being forged, influencing how children were represented in 19th Century literature aimed at them.
Lewis Carroll’s interest in young female innocence is explained by some of the experts as one that invoked desire, but not necessarily sexual.
Jenny Woolf, author of The Mystery of Lewis Carroll, agrees with this theory.
“Girls offered him a non-judgemental and non-sexual female audience and he opened up to them. They loved him and he found it a relief to be with them.
“Although he was attracted to women, celibacy was a condition of Carroll’s job [a condition imposed on certain Oxford academics at the time] and he believed that having sex was against God’s wishes for him.”
There are plenty of experts who find his interests harder to explain and it is inevitable that this knowledge will inform what readers take from the story.
Consult any set of notes on the book and you’ll see a slew of themes picked out: puberty, abandonment, the challenge of transition to adulthood, even the perils of authoritarian justice in the form of the Queen of Hearts.
But bearing in mind the nature of the birth of the piece, an off-the-cuff attempt to amuse a child in a rowboat, are people guilty of reading too much into it?
In a recent issue of Prospect magazine, Richard Jenkyns, professor of the classical tradition at Oxford University, called Alice in Wonderland “probably the most purely child-centred book ever written” and said that its only purpose “is to give pleasure”.
Yet another narrative imposed on the book is the idea of grappling with a sense of self. Lewis Carroll led a very controlled existence, struggling with self-identity, a recurring theme in the book as Alice regularly expresses uncertainty about who she is after she enters Wonderland.
“Perhaps that’s why his book refers to <<morality>> in jeering terms,” suggests Jenny Woolf.
“And the action takes place either underground or in a world which is the opposite of our own.”
We can’t ever truly know what Lewis Carroll intended or if he meant to write anything beyond an enchanting children’s story.
Based on his own experience as an illustrator for the 1988 edition of Alice in Wonderland, Anthony Browne believes Lewis Carroll might not have been aware of the meanings found within his story.
“People interpret books in a logical way as they do dreams. They want it to have meaning. Alice in Wonderland is not to be read as a logical book. There could be some hidden meanings in there, especially considering Carroll was a mathematician during his lifetime, whether he was aware of such meanings subconsciously or not.”
Ultimately, perhaps it’s more enjoyable for the full intentions of the author to remain unknown during the reading of the book.
“In a way, it doesn’t matter,” says Anthony Browne.
“I don’t think Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland to be interpreted. He wrote it to entertain.”
Nonce and nonsense
Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky is one of the great nonsense poems in English, scattered with so-called “nonce” words – coined for one occasion only:
• Bandersnatch: fictional wild animal
• Brillig: Humpty Dumpty explains this as “four o’clock in the afternoon – the time when you begin broiling things for dinner”
• Chortled: mixture of chuckle and snort
• Gyre: A whirling, a vortex
• Mimsy: A combination of flimsy and miserable
• Snickersnack: possibly related to large knife, the snickersnee
In the late Sixties a young clinical psychologist named James Laird performed a ground-breaking experiment asking a group of volunteers to smile or frown, then report how they felt.
His theory, proved correct, was shocking in its simplicity: those who were grinning should feel significantly happier than those who feigned sadness.
That one tiny movement which can change your outlook is the basis for Professor Richard Wiseman’s new book, Rip It Up.
If you struggle to get over a relationship just write your feelings on paper, put it in an envelope and seal it
Surviving a break-up:
Struggling to get over a relationship? Write your feelings on paper, put it in an envelope and seal it.
Researcher Xiuping Li from the National University of Singapore Business School asked 80 people to write down a recent decision they regretted.
Xiuping Li then asked some of the participants to hand their descriptions to a researcher and others to seal them in an envelope.
Those who did the latter felt better about their past decision compared with those who handed them over, because they felt as if they had reached closure.
Next time you want help to get over the end of a relationship, write down what happened, put it in an envelope, and kiss the past goodbye.
In a candid interview with Oprah Winfrey last night Rihanna admitted despite their relationship violent end she still loves ex-boyfriend Chris Brown.
Rihanna, 24, told Oprah Winfrey she and Chris Brown are still “very close friends”, adding: “We built a trust again and that’s it. We love each other and we probably always will.”
The television special for Oprah: The Next Chapter showed Oprah Winfrey describe the fall-out from the horrific night after a pre-Grammy party in 2009.
After re-counting the events, a tearful Rihanna, real name Robyn Fenty, opened up about where the pair’s relationship now stands.
“It was embarrassing it was humiliating… I lost my best friend,” she said.
Rihanna admits since the restraining order was dropped against Chris Brown in February 2011, the pair have been working on their friendship, having seen each other as recently as last month in St. Tropez.
In a candid interview with Oprah Winfrey last night Rihanna admitted despite their relationship violent end she still loves ex-boyfriend Chris Brown
“We’ve been working on our friendship again and now we’re very close friends,” she said.
“And that’s not anything we’re going to try to change.”
But she said it’s still difficult to see her ex, because her feelings are conflicting.
“It’s awkward because I still love him.
“My stomach drops and I have to maintain this poker face and not let it get to the outer part of me. I have to maintain it and suppress it,” she explained.
Then she added: “When you don’t understand those feelings you can make a lot of mistakes.”
Rihanna said they are not pursuing anything romantic, noting Chris Brown is in a longterm relationship (with model Karrueche Tran), while she is single.
Still, the memories of their relationship, she predicted, will linger.
“I think he is the love of my life. He was my first love.”
But she remembers, in part, where it went wrong: “We were very young and very spontaneous. We were falling in love and going at a really rapid pace. We forgot about ourselves as individuals.”
Rihanna’s words have caused uproar with domestic violence support charities blasting the singer for “normalizing” abuse.
Charities claim Rihanna is sending out a dangerous message, which could stop abused women from coming forward.
Vivienne Hayes, chief executive of the Women’s Resource Centre, told The Independent: “Rihanna’s case demonstrates the emotional complexities felt by women locked in abusive relationships.”
After falling into what she described as a “dark place”, reflected in her music, her fashion choices and her attitude, the singer said she was finally able to make peace with the violent end to their romance by rebuilding her relationship with her father, Ronald Fenty.
“I was so angry at him. I was just angry about a lot of things from my childhood. And I couldn’t separate him as a husband from him as my father,” she said, acknowledging he was violent toward her mother, Monica Braithwaite.
Rihanna’s parents split nearly two years before she left Barbados for the states at 16. The singer admitted her father’s “addiction” tore her family apart; although she did not elaborate on his substance abuse.
Now, after bridging the gap, she says she has moved on from the scandal with Chris Brown that has cast a shadow over her career for the last three years.
“I have to move on,” she said.
“I have forgiven him. It took me a long time. I was angry for a long time.”
But that reconciliation comes with the desire to know her ex has also healed since the fracas.
“I truly love him, so the main thing for me is that he’s at peace… I care. It actually matters [to me] that he finds that peace,” she said.
Prepared for a backlash, she continued: “I can’t tell people how to feel about it. They’re entitled to feel angry because it wasn’t a good thing that happened. But I have forgiven him.”
It is well known that everybody hates Mondays, but a new research suggests Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are equally loathed.
US researchers who looked at a poll of 340,000 people found moods were no worse on Mondays than other working days, bar Friday.
People were happier as they approached the weekend, lending support for the concept of “that Friday feeling”.
The report authors told the Journal of Positive Psychology that the concept of miserable Mondays should be ditched.
US researchers who looked at a poll of 340,000 people found moods were no worse on Mondays than other working days, bar Friday
Prof. Arthur Stone of Stony Brook University said: “Despite our global beliefs about lousy Mondays, we conclude that this belief should be abandoned.
“Cultural myths may vastly over-emphasize actual day of the week mood patterns.”
Similarly, claims that the Monday of the last full week of January – dubbed “blue Monday” – is the most depressing of the whole year have been debunked by others.
Prof. Arthur Stone’s team analyzed data collected by Gallup from telephone interviews.
People reported more enjoyment and happiness and less stress or worry on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays compared with the rest of the week.
Prof. Arthur Stone says it is the contrast in mood from Sunday to Monday that has led to Mondays being unfairly singled out.
Considered the most prestigious event of its kind, Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance (“a competition of elegance”) is the conclusion of a week long festival of classic cars events in the Monterey area, California.
This year, a Mercedes-Benz built in 1928 won Best of Show, Baroness von Krieger’s 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K was sold for $11.77 million, while a 1968 Ford GT40, sold for $11 million, set a new record as the most expensive American car ever sold at auction.
On the third Sunday of each August (August 19, 2012) the most refined cars in the world are displayed on the Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, California.
Around 200 of the most prized collector cars and motorcycles are presented on the best finishing hole in golf, the famed eighteenth fairway at Pebble Beach.
Bugatti, Daimler, Delage, Duesenberg, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Packard, Rolls-Royce, are represented, along with Alfa-Romeo, Aston Martin, Cadillac, Chrysler, Cord, Isotta-Fraschini, Lancia, Maserati, Stutz and Talbot-Lago.
The 62nd edition of Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance included fifteen Cars of the Maharajas, twelve marques (brands) of Mercer (road and race cars, including Mercer Raceabout) and eight marques of Fiat (Grand Prix racers, coachbuilt prewar classics, and small postwar cars, with variants on the original Fiat 500). Special classes presented eleven cars designed by Jacques Saoutchik (Bugatti, Delahaye and Pegaso), nine roadsters Shelby Cobra, designed by Carroll Shelby in collaboration with AC Motors, ten American Sport Customs (1930s–1950s), German Motorcycles (BMW, DKW, NSU, Zündapp, including an 1885 Daimler Reitwagen, the world’s first actual motorcycle).
The maharajas (great kings) of India and South Asia bought hundreds of expensive cars (Rolls-Royce, Daimler, Hispano-Suiza, Maybach, Bugatti, Duesenberg, Minerva) during the last century. Lots of those cars were custom built for hunting or display. Over 800 Rolls-Royces were shipped to India between 1900 and 1950. Seven of them, built between 1924 and 1937, were displayed. One of them still belongs to the Maharaja of Udaipur, another (the “Star of India” of 1935) to the grandson of the maharaja who first bought it. The Maharajas Collection also includes a 1930 Bentley, a 1930 Delage, a 1935 Duesenberg, a 1925 and a 1935 Hispano-Suiza, a 1930 Mercedes-Benz 27/140/200 Type SS, and two “swan”-shaped vehicles comissioned by the Maharaja of Nabha in 1910 and 1919. The 1910 Brooke motor car, brought from the Louwman Museum in The Hague, was commissioned by Scotsman Robert Nicholl Matthewson, who lived in India in the early 1900s. It is modeled after a swan, and it is equipped with eyes that light up, a beak that opens, closes and sprays steam, and an eight-tone horn.
The three best cars in twenty categories (plus one for German motorcycles) are awarded and one of them is chosen “Best of Show”, with two runners-up.
Buggati has won “Best of Show” nine times since the beginning of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. It is followed by Duesenberg and Mercedes-Benz, each of them with six victories. Rolls-Royce had five victories; and Daimler, Delage, Jaguar and Packard, three each.
1928 Mercedes-Benz 680S Saoutchik Torpedo, entered by Paul and Judy Andrews of White Settlement, Texas, won Best Of Show at Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance 2012.
Mercedes-Benz acquired its seventh victory with the 1928 Mercedes-Benz 680S Saoutchik Torpedo entered by Paul and Judy Andrews of White Settlement, Texas. The car is one of seven Torpedo bodies designed by Jacques Saoutchik for the Mercedes-Benz 680S chassis and is powered by a 6.8-liter supercharged engine (somewhere between 200 and 300 horsepower). This low-windshield appeared at the New York Auto Show in 1928, was sold to Frederick Henry Bedford and spent 30 years in storage before receiving a total restoration.
During Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, classic-car auctions are held by Gooding and Canadian RM Auctions at the nearby equestrian center.
An auction world record was set last year, when a 1957 Ferrari Testarossa was sold for $16.4 million.
Gisela von Krieger’s silver-striped black 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster, although expected to break the record, was sold for $11.77 million at Gooding’s auction, while a 1968 Ford GT40, sold for $11 million (RM Auctions), set a new record as the most expensive American car ever sold at auction.
The 1968 Ford GT40 is an extremely rare racer (one of only two surviving) and it was used as a camera car by Steve McQueen for his film “Le Mans” (1971).
1968 Ford GT40 made a record as the most expensive American car sold at auction, at Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance 2012.
Considered the automotive equivalent of a coveted Picasso painting and known as the Von Krieger’s Special Roadster, the 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K had only two owners, Gisela and, after her death, Lee Herrington.
This rare car is one of 26 540K Special Roadsters, and was built on special order before World War II. Baroness Gisela Josephine von Krieger was considered one of the ten most fashionable women in the world. She made the car her own, although the car was bought by aristocratic von Krieger family for the use of her brother, Henning. When the war started, Gisela refused orders from the Third Reich to return home from France and sent the car to Switzerland. After the end of the war, Gisela lived in Manhattan, but kept the car at the Homestead Inn in Greenwich area, even after when she moved back in early 1960s to Switzerland. At her death in 1989, the car was valued $2.5 million. The vehicle was discovered untouched, with pink lipstick-stained cigarette butts in the ashtray, vintage roadmaps of New York and Connecticut in the door pockets and a woman’s driving glove in the glove box. The radiant black-and-chrome roadster with an interior of saddle leather and wood veneer is one of perhaps a dozen left in the world, and represents the height of prewar German automotive engineering.
Gisela von Krieger’s 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster, although expected to break the sale record, was sold for $11.77 million at Gooding's auction. Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance 2012
Mercedes-Benz wants to preserve classic cars and to encourage collectors, it has a Classic Center which offers customers hard to find parts.
During the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the annual Mercedes-Benz gala dinner honored car collector Arturo Keller with its coveted Star Driver Award.
NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity has zapped its first Martian rock.
Curiosity rover fired its ChemCam laser at a tennis-ball-sized stone lying about 2.5 m away on the ground.
The brief but powerful burst of light from the instrument vaporized the surface of the rock, revealing details of its basic chemistry.
This was just target practice for ChemCam, proving it is ready to begin the serious business of investigating the geology of the Red Planet.
It is part of a suite of instruments on the one-ton robot, which landed two weeks ago in a deep equatorial depression known as Gale Crater.
Over the course of one Martian year, Curiosity will try to determine whether past environments at its touchdown location could ever have supported life.
The US-French ChemCam instrument will be a critical part of that investigation, helping to select the most interesting objects for study.
The inaugural target of the laser was a 7 cm-wide rock dubbed “Coronation” (previously N165).
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity has zapped its first Martian rock
It had no particular science value, and was expected to be just another lump of ubiquitous Martian basalt, a volcanic rock.
Its appeal was the nice smooth face it offered to the laser.
ChemCam zapped it with 30 pulses of infrared light during a 10-second period.
Each pulse delivered to a tiny spot more than a million watts of power for about five billionths of a second.
The instrument observed the resulting spark through a telescope; the component colors would have told scientists which atomic elements were present.
“We got a great spectrum of Coronation – lots of signal,” said ChemCam principal investigator Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico.
“Our team is both thrilled and working hard, looking at the results. After eight years building the instrument, it’s pay-off time.”
One aspect being considered by the team is whether the signal changed slightly as the laser burrowed through any exterior layers that might have coated Coronation.
“Coatings can tell you about, say, the weather or what has happened to a rock through the eons,” said Dr. Rogers Wiens last week.
“We will look at the first few laser shots and see if there is any difference as we move further into the rock.”
The British company e2v provided the imaging sensor behind the ChemCam telescope that routes the light signal, via optical fibres, to the onboard spectrometer which does the chemical analysis.
The charge-coupled device (CCD) was specially prepared for the instrument to increase its sensitivity.
“The scientists always want to see more, but they want to see more without cost to performance,” said e2v’s Jon Kemp.
“Our process was able to almost double the signal to noise ratio.”
The first science target for ChemCam will be bedrock exposed on the ground next to Curiosity by the rocket-powered crane used to lower the vehicle to the crater floor on 6 August (GMT).
Exhaust from this descent stage scattered surface grit and pebbles to reveal a harder, compact material underneath.
The crane made four scour marks in the ground – two either side of the rover. These have been dubbed Burnside, Goulburn, Hepburn and Sleepy Dragon – names taken from ancient rock formations in Canadian North America.
Goulburn Scour will be zapped by ChemCam once the mission team has reviewed fully the Coronation performance and results.
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, has been discharged from hospital after receiving treatment for a bladder infection.
Prince Philip, 91, spent five nights at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary – his third hospital stay in nine months.
The duke was taken to hospital on Wednesday during the royals’ annual summer break at Balmoral in Aberdeenshire.
It is not yet known if he will be fit to attend the Paralympics opening ceremony with the Queen on 29 August.
It was a low-key exit and he looked extremely relaxed, shaking hands with the doctors and nurses involved in treating him.
Prince Philip has been discharged from hospital after receiving treatment for a bladder infection
Denise Webster, a senior staff nurse, told reporters: “The duke was a very good patient, and as he left the hospital he told staff to behave themselves and he said he was going back to enjoy the rest of his holiday.”
Prince Philip has now rejoined the rest of the Royal Family at Balmoral.
Buckingham Palace had described his admission to hospital as a “precautionary measure” after the recurrence of an infection he suffered shortly before the Diamond Jubilee concert on 4 June.
The duke missed the Royal Family’s visit to morning service at Crathie Kirk on Sunday, before spending a fifth night at the NHS hospital, where he was seen by private physicians.
Doctors told the duke to rest and he did not receive any visitors during his latest stay in hospital, however his family are said to have been in contact by phone.
In June, the duke spent five nights in hospital with a bladder infection following the Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the River Thames.
He missed some of the key celebrations for the Queen’s 60-year reign, including the star-studded Jubilee concert.
Prince Philip, who is the longest-serving royal consort in British royalty, also spent four nights in hospital over Christmas following an operation to clear a blocked heart artery.
In March, Prince Harry said the operation – which was successful – had given his grandfather a “new spurt of life”.
The duke went to Balmoral after attending several Olympic events, including the opening ceremony, and he also saw his granddaughter Zara Phillips’ Olympic equestrian debut.
Last week Prince Philip was said to be in good spirits when he took part in events as part of Cowes Week on the Isle of Wight.
Burma has decided to abolish pre-publication censorship of the country’s media, the information ministry has announced.
The Press Scrutiny and Registration Department (PSRD) said that as of Monday, reporters would no longer have to submit their work to state censors before publication.
However, strict laws remain in place which could see journalists punished for what they have written.
Burma has kept tight control over all aspects of its media for some 50 years.
But the civilian government has been gradually easing restrictions since taking office last year.
Burma has decided to abolish pre-publication censorship of the country's media
“Censorship began on 6 August 1964 and ended 48 years and two weeks later,” Tint Swe, head of the PSRD, told AFP news agency on Monday.
“Any publication inside the country will not have to get prior permission from us before they are published.
“From now on, our department will just carry out registering publications for keeping them at the national archives and issuing a license to printers and publishers,” he said.
Tint Swe said the likelihood of permission being granted for private newspapers to be set up was “closer than before” and could happen after a new media law is enacted.
A ministry official told AFP films would still be subject to censorship.
Wai Phyo, editor of the Weekly Eleven journal, told Reuters the move was “a big improvement on the past”, but that editors would now be under increasing pressure to ensure their publications remained legal.
In the past, entire newspapers have been shut because of their reports and many reporters have been jailed.
But in recent months, journalists had been given guidelines allowing them to write about controversial topics, something that would have been unthinkable under the previous military rule.
Some 300 newspapers and magazines covering less sensitive issues had already been given permission to print without prior censorship and restrictions were lifted on 30,000 internet sites, allowing users unrestricted access to political content for the first time.
In October last year, Tint Swe said censorship should be abolished as it was incompatible with democratic practices, while warning that all publications should accept the responsibilities that go with press freedom.
Kris Jenner develops a morbid obsession with her family’s unfinished funeral arrangements this week after spending time with her ageing mother.
What starts off as a time for planning the happy arrival of a new life, Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick’s at-the-time unborn daughter Penelope, quickly turns into a week spent in cemeteries and funeral homes to the horror of the Kardashian clan.
Kris Jenner’ focus on the impending death of all those around her even ends with the premature passing of a couple of unsuspecting pet fish.
The episode begins with Kim and Khloe Kardashian deciding to buy a pet for Mason after Kim has the idea that she wants to get a present for her little nephew, as Kourtney is worried about his reaction to the impending arrival of his baby sister.
The sisters decide on fish and arrive at the Kardashian-Disick house with a couple of pet fishies much to Mason’s delight and apathy of parents Scott and Kourtney.
“Are you going to come and feed them every day?” Scott Disick gripes.
“I’m not a pet person,” Kourtney Kardashian says.
“I don’t want pets until my kids are old enough to ask for one.”
But after seeing her son’s happy face she concedes: “If it brings Mason joy, it makes me happy.”
But over at the Jenner household, meanwhile Kris is worried about her impending death.
A spell with her mother and the realization that there is no room for her in her parents’ burial plot has prompted her to start fretting over her own funeral arrangements.
Kris Jenner broaches the subject with Bruce after her mother suggests Kris should look into a family plot at a celeb-filled Hollywood cemetery.
“You should all be buried next to Marilyn Monroe,” she crows.
“You could be part of a tour!”
Kris Jenner develops a morbid obsession with her family's unfinished funeral arrangements this week after spending time with her ageing mother
Kris Jenner decides to call a family meeting to discuss the ideal resting place for the clan should the unthinkable happen but while the mother-of-six tries to get the family to discuss its burial wishes – Robert, Khloe, Kim, Kendall, Kylie – and even Bruce – are having none of it.
Addressing the group she says: “If something happens to me, you’re going to be hopefully sad about it and you’re not going to make the right decision.”
But the remark has Khloe and Rob choking back laughter, while Kylie keeps her head down and texts furiously.
“There’s a lot to do and I want to make sure everything’s organized if something happens to one of my family members,” Kris Jenner reasons.
Kim Kardashian is also baffled with her mother’s topic of conversation: “What’s the right decision?
“You get in a coffin, you get in the ground – what do you want me to do?!” she asks impatiently in the preview clip from the upcoming show.
“Tell me what color [casket] you want? Do you want Tempur-pedic? And what kind of pillow-top?”
Undeterred, Kris Jenner launches into the importance of a family burial plot, but Khloe Kardashian can’t help but take another jab at her business-minded mother.
“Hey go into the funeral business! There you could extort us,” she mocks.
“Let’s make some commissions on those plots, baby!” she says as she high-fives Rob.
Eerily, soon after this morbid meeting, Khloe Kardashian looks in on the new pets and discovers that one of Mason’s fish has met with a premature end.
Kourtney Kardashian is vindicated saying: “I had a dog that died when I was little. I was completely traumatized and that’s why I hate dogs now.”
Fearing the psychological the fish’s death will have on her young son, Kourtney Kardashian insists on taking a photo of the dead pet and rushes out to a local pet store to buy an exact replica before Mason notices much to the amusement of her sisters.
Undeterred by the lack of family support, Kris Jenner has arranged for a tour of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, one the oldest in Los Angeles and resting place of Tinseltown luminaries including Cecil B DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentino.
While discussing the options with long-suffering husband Bruce, Kris Jenner asks him: “Do you think I should be above ground? You can go underneath me.”
To which the former Olympian quips: “No! I’ve been there enough! I want to be on to this time.”
Khloe Kardashian – who is still treating the whole affair as a joke – tells the cemetery owner: “We want a private lake with a mausoleum and a moat [with] a drawbridge so no-one can steal the bodies.”
Kim Kardashian on the other hand is beginning to see her mother’s point: “Why not have a fab resting place?” she muses.
When Kourtney Kardashian calls later to say that another fish has died and instructs Kim to go and find a replacement, Bruce decides that the time has come to for Mason to be introduced to the concepts of death and heaven.
After he brings over a book called Dog Heaven for Mason, Kourtney Kardashian realizes that the little boy is totally unfazed by the fish’s demise and by the time Scott returns has disposed of the pet and tank.
“Fish are too hard to take care of,” she wails.
“We take care of a child,” he retorts.
“It’s not that hard.”
Having solved the problem of location, Kris Jenner has now moved on the subject of caskets and brings Khloe, Kim and Rob along to give some coffins a test run.
The mother-of-six even goes so far as to climbing into on and posing as a corpse for a photo to the horror of her children as they are suddenly faced with a vision of the mother’s death.
Kim Kardashian, unfazed by her mother’s morbidity, returns to Kris Jenner’s office for a frozen yoghurt and before long the pair are musing as to who will take responsibility for Kourtney’s children if she were to pass away unexpectedly.
Over a conference call, Kourtney Kardashian announces curtly: “I’ve thought about it and I think Khloe is the best fit… I’ve already asked her.”
Leaving Kim stunned, hurt and storming out of the room.
Later Kim Kardashian is still upset about the fact that she has not been chosen to be Mason’s guardian and confronts Khloe about it.
“I don’t see why Kourtney thinks you are the better aunt when I spend more time with Mason,” she whines.
Later Khloe reports back to Kourtney and tells her that Kim is angry.
“I’m surprised that Kim has been lashing out at Khloe,” Kourtney Kardashian says.
“I had no idea that she’d even be interested in taking on Mason…. She has no clue what is involved. She’s never home!”
When Kim Kardashian comes over the following day to play with Mason, Kourtney asks her if she’d like to babysit giving Kim the opportunity to confront her over the issue.
Kourtney Kardashian tries to explain her decision saying: “You’re always traveling and Khloe makes dinner every night…..I just feel you’re really all about Kim,” she finally admits.
Kim Kardashian ends up storming out of the house with the words: “So rude!”
“Yeah, I don’t have kids right now,” Kim Kardashian retorts later.
“But I could adjust. The fact that she says I’m all about myself…It’s really hard to hear that’s what Kourtney thinks of me.”
Kris Jenner is now busy ordering a variety of floral arrangements so that the family members can choose the flowers they would like best at their funerals, a move that prompts Rob and Khloe to call time out on their mother’s research.
Over drinks they explain to Kris Jenner how uncomfortable the funeral discussions have been making them – in particular Kris’s coffin testing.
“She needs to understand that we’ve already lost a parent and we don’t want to think about losing another one,” Khloe Kardashian says.
Later, in an attempt to make peace Kourtney visits Kim at home to settle the issue of Mason’s guardianship.
“I think you’re a great aunt to Mason,” she reasons.
“But I had to chose someone.”
Kim Kardashian replies: “I just wish that you’r talked to me about it – you knew I’d find out eventually.”
Kourtney Kardashian then pacifies her indignant sister by offering her the responsibility for Mason’s financial affairs in the event of her and Scott Disick’s death: “Because I know you’re good with that kind of thing.”
This seems to have the desired effect as Kim Kardashian goes on to boast about how she has now been put in charge of the two-year-old’s fiscal future.
Finally in an effort to get Kris Jenner to put a lid on her funeral planning Rob organizes a party for his mother and her friends at a winery in Malibu to celebrate her life.
While his mom trills with pleasure he unveils a new tattoo – a portrait of Kris Jenner on his forearm to show his appreciation for his mother.
“Are you ready to start enjoying life and stop focussing on your funeral now?” he asks.
“I’m definitely going to live in the moment,” she says.
Keeping Up With the Kardashians airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m. (EST) on E!
Gu Kailai, wife of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai, has been given a suspended death sentence for the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood.
Gu Kailai did not contest charges at her one-day trial that she poisoned Neil Heywood in November 2011.
Suspended death sentences are usually commuted to life imprisonment in China.
Bo Xilai, the former communist party chief in Chongqing, was once seen as a contender for a national leadership position in a top-level reshuffle later this year.
But he has not been seen in public since the investigation into Gu Kailai was announced.
Gu Kailai’s aide, Zhang Xiaojun, was jailed for nine years for his part in the murder.
The verdict in China’s most high-profile trial for years came early on Monday, inside a court ringed by security personnel.
Gu Kailai has been given a suspended death sentence for the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood
Chinese state media reported that during the 9 August trial – which was not open to all – Gu Kailai admitted she poisoned Neil Heywood in a hotel room in Chongqing, helped by her aide.
She said she had suffered a mental breakdown and that Neil Heywood had threatened her son amid a row over a property deal, state media said.
Images shown on Chinese state television showed Gu Kailai responding to the verdict.
“This verdict is just. It shows special respect for the law, reality and life,” she said.
Speaking after the sentence was announced, court spokesman Tang Yigan said the court believed Neil Heywood had threatened Gu Kailai’s son but not acted on the threats. It also found Gu had been suffering from “psychological impairment”, he said.
In a statement, the British embassy in Beijing said its thoughts were with the family of Neil Heywood.
“We welcome the fact that the Chinese authorities have investigated the death of Neil Heywood, and tried those they identified as responsible,” the statement said.
“We consistently made clear to the Chinese authorities that we wanted to see the trials in this case conform to international human rights standards and for the death penalty not to be applied.”
A lawyer for the Heywood family said they respected the court’s decision.
The sentence of death with a two-year suspension means that if Gu Kailai commits no crimes while in prison, her sentence will be commuted after two years to life imprisonment and could be further reduced for good behavior, Chinese legal expert Professor Donald Clarke writes in his blog.
Chinese internet users reacted immediately to the verdict on Twitter-like microblogging platforms.
With key names connected to the case still apparently censored, most used the phrase “suspended death sentence”. Within two hours, there were at least two million posts.
Many users expressed dissatisfaction, saying most murderers in China would be executed. Some attributed it to Gu Kailai’s background, others suggested she could eventually be freed under medical parole.
At a separate trial on 10 August, four senior police officers from Chongqing admitted charges of covering up evidence linking Gu Kailai to the murder. A court official said they had been given terms of between five and 11 years in prison, AFP reported.
Neil Heywood’s death was initially recorded as a heart attack.
The case came to light when Bo Xilai’s deputy, police chief Wang Lijun, fled to the US consulate in February, reportedly with information connected to the case.
He has not been seen in public since then and state media say he is being investigated.
It is not yet known how the Communist Party plans to deal with Bo Xilai, once seen as a powerful and ambitious high-flier.
Many analysts expected him to be promoted to the nine-strong politburo Standing Committee later in the year.
Seven committee members are due to retire, with a new generation of leaders to take their place at a party congress expected later this year.
But Bo Xilai has been stripped of his official posts and is being investigated for “discipline violations”, state media reports say.
A lengthy Xinhua news agency write-up of Gu Kailai’s trial, however, made no mention of Bo Xilai.
BO XILAI SCANDAL
• 6 February: Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun flees to the US consulate in Chengdu
• 15 March: Bo Xilai is removed from his post in Chongqing
• 20 March: Rumors suggest Bo Xilai could be linked to the death of British businessman Neil Heywood
• 10 April: Bo Xilai is suspended from party posts and his wife, Gu Kailai, is investigated over Neil Heywood’s death
• 26 July: Gu Kailai and Bo family employee Zhang Xiaojun are charged with killing Neil Heywood
• 9 August: Gu Kailai goes on trial for murder
• 20 August: Gu Kailai given suspended death sentence
John Lennon’s killer, Mark David Chapman, faces his seventh parole hearing later this week.
Mark David Chapman, now 57, was jailed for 20 years to life after he confessed to shooting the Beatles singer outside his New York apartment in 1980.
He has come up for parole every two years since 2000 and has been turned down each time. In 2010, officials said his release remained “inappropriate”.
A decision on whether to release Mark David Chapman will likely be made public by the end of the week, a prison spokeswoman said.
John Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, faces his seventh parole hearing later this week
Mark David Chapman’s interviews with the parole board will take place at Wende Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Alden, New York, where he is currently held.
He was transferred to the facility in May this year, where he was understood to have been placed in protective custody, though the reason was never made public.
In the past, John Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono is among those who have urged New York state officials to keep him behind bars, saying she fears for her own life and that of her two sons.
The former security guard, who has a history of mental illness, claims to have undergone a religious conversion while in prison.
On his last attempt at release – in September 2010 – Mark David Chapman is understood to have told the parole board he believed that “by killing John Lennon I would become somebody”.
“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” Mark David Chapman stated.
“I made a horrible decision to end another human being’s life, for reasons of selfishness.”
“I felt that by killing John Lennon I would become somebody and instead of that I became a murderer and murderers are not somebodies,” he said.
Denying parole at the time, the board cited his “disregard” for human life, adding: “This premeditated, senseless and selfish act of tragic consequence… leads to the conclusion that your discretionary release remains inappropriate at this time and incompatible with the welfare of the community.”
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has made his first appearance in public since a bomb attack in Damascus last month killed several senior officials.
State TV showed Bashar al-Assad performing prayers in the capital’s al-Hamad mosque at the start of the Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of Ramadan.
Across the country, many people marked the holiday with prayers and anti-government demonstrations.
But opposition groups reported fierce bombardments of rebel-held areas.
Parts of Aleppo and Rastan have been shelled, and clashes reported in Herak, Deraa province, the pro-rebel Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Protests were held at cemeteries and mosques around Syria including Damascus, Hama and Idlib, opposition activists said.
Bashar al-Assad was shown seated on the mosque floor and standing to shake hands with clerics.
Syrian state TV showed Bashar al-Assad performing prayers in the capital's al-Hamad mosque at the start of the Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of Ramadan
Correspondents say that in previous years he was generally filmed arriving or leaving in his convoy, but this did not happen this time.
The Syrian president has not been seen in public since giving a speech in parliament on 4 July.
Two weeks later, a bombing in the state security headquarters killed four senior officials including Bashar al-Assad’s brother in law, Deputy Defence Minister Assef Shawkat.
There have also been several defections in recent weeks by senior officials, notably Prime Minister Riad Hijab.
However, on Saturday officials denied rumors that Vice-President Farouq al-Shara, the most senior Sunni Muslim in the Damascus regime, had gone over to the opposition.
The international community has welcomed the appointment of the veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi as the new UN-Arab League envoy for Syria.
The 78-year-old succeeds Kofi Annan who resigned this month as his peace plan had failed to achieve a real ceasefire.
Analysts say he has a formidable reputation at the UN but is also seen as independent of the major powers.
Officials in Damascus have also given him their support.
However, opposition groups have expressed skepticism about his ability to accomplish his mission.
Lakhdar Brahimi has said it is too soon for him to demand that Bashar al-Assad should step down. Kofi Annan had said it was clear he should leave office.
Meanwhile, the mandate of the UN observer mission in Syria ends at midnight local time. The observers were deployed to monitor a ceasefire brokered by Kofi Annan, but no truce ever took hold.
Announcing his resignation earlier this month, Kofi Annan had said he was unable to fulfill his role because of the growing militarization of the conflict, as well as deadlock in the UN Security Council.
Russia and China have vetoed resolutions on the crisis three times, citing their opposition to any action which might be seen as regime change imposed from outside.
Activists estimate about 20,000 people have died since anti-government protests erupted against the Assad regime in March last year. Tens of thousands of people have also fled the country.
Beyoncé’s new video shows the 30-year-old singer slipping into a gorgeous white sequinned gown to perform her 2011 track I Was Here for World Humanitarian Day.
Beyoncé’s new video was recorded as she performed the song at the United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York on 10 August.
In the footage, Beyoncé is seen wearing a gorgeous gown, with her long hair pulled back into a high ponytail, as she showcases her vocal talents on the soulful track.
The superstar revealed earlier this month that she would be dedicating the track to World Humanitarian Day, which is today.
Beyoncé's new video shows the 30-year-old singer slipping into a gorgeous white sequinned gown to perform her 2011 track I Was Here for World Humanitarian Day
Beyoncé explained: ”It says, <<I want to leave my footprints in the sands of time>> and it basically is all of our dreams, I think. And that’s leaving our mark on the world. I feel like we all want to know that our life meant something.
“We all have our purpose, and we all have our strengths…it feels so wonderful to do something for someone else. And I think for the U.N. to want to include the whole world was something important, and I feel like that’s what I represent.”
Beyoncé previously said about the charitable event: “We all see the headlines and we think what can I really do to help?
“World Humanitarian Day is an opportunity for all of us to work together to make a difference. This is our time to leave our mark on the world and show that we were here and we care.”
Beyoncé’s new video comes after it was revealed that Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and Michelle Obama are among the famous faces who have signed on to support the singer and the global campaign for World Humanitarian Day.
The campaign asks that today people help others through such acts as making sandwiches for the homeless or volunteering at a local charity. The goal is to share 1 billion messages of hope.
A representative for Beyoncé says that Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Michelle Obama, Rihanna, Shakira, Jay-Z, Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Martin and others will participate.
Pink impersonator Zoe Alexander took the rejection a little too personally, resulting in what turned out to be the most shocking audition ever to take place on The X Factor.
While the scenes were filmed earlier this year, Zoe Alexander’s audition was seen for the first time on last night’s premiere episode of the new series of UK’s X Factor – showing the full extent of the foul-mouthed rant which saw Welsh singer Zoe arrested.
Things started well for Zoe Alexander, who looked confident and poised as she made her way onto the stage to perform in front of the judges, Tulisa Contostavlos, Nicole Scherzinger, Gary Barlow and Louis Walsh.
With her blonde hair shaved on one side, and wearing a pair of stomach-baring PVC leggings with a tied shirt and bra top, there was no question of which singer Zoe Alexander was attempting to impersonate.
However, despite assuring the judges that she wanted to use The X Factor as a way to establish her own identity, Zoe Alexander then proceeded to sing a Pink song, belting out her hit track So What to the visible disappointment of the judges and the audience.
Sensing the performance wasn’t going too well, Gary Barlow stopped the audition, telling Zoe Alexander she should try again with a different song.
Pink impersonator Zoe Alexander took the rejection a little too personally, resulting in what turned out to be the most shocking audition ever to take place on The X Factor
Zoe Alexander then attempted to perform Emeli Sande’s Next To Me, but once again failed to impress.
As she awaited comments from the judges, Zoe Alexander was told by Tulisa Contostavlos that she shouldn’t have opted to sing a Pink song in the first place if she was trying to step away from her alter-ego.
She told Zoe Alexander: “Okay see the problem is, you came out saying that you wanted to find your own identity, it’s very confusing for me because I did feel like I was watching a Pink tribute act.”
However, Zoe Alexander then alleged that she had been told to sing a Pink track by the four judges – a claim Tulisa Contostavlos strenuously denied.
After receiving four “No” from the judges, Zoe Alexander then decided to exert her frustration by storming off the stage – throwing her microphone in a fit of anger in the process.
She was also seen taking out her anger on a waiting cameraman – grabbing the camera and knocking it to the floor.
But as she made her way off the stage, Zoe Alexander was met by her father – who works as a Tom Jones impersonator – who then dragged her back in front of the judges in a bid to plead her case.
Following a failed attempt to reason with the panel, Zoe Alexander ended up screaming profanities at the judges, much to the shock of the four judges.
She was then seen running off the stage, screaming and swearing while doing so, before she was met by her family, who attempted to comfort the visibly agitated singer.
After the audition, Zoe Alexander was arrested and cautioned for hitting a producer.
However, since then, Zoe Alexander has maintained that she was “stitched up” to make a better scene for X Factor viewers.
Zoe Alexander told the Sunday Mirror today: “They set out to make a total and utter fool of me. Even though this audition was in June, I’m still struggling to come to terms with what happened.
“I used to be so confident and I trusted people. Now I just don’t trust anyone. I can hardly sleep – I’m basically a nervous wreck.”
However, a show official told the paper that Zoe Alexander wasn’t made to sing the Pink song, adding: “Contestants are not told what to sing, they make their own decisions.”
A headache or cephalalgia is a pain anywhere in the region of the head or neck. It can be a symptom of a number of different conditions of the head and neck.
The brain tissue itself is not sensitive to pain because it lacks pain receptors. Rather, the pain is caused by disturbance of the pain-sensitive structures around the brain. Nine areas of the head and neck have these pain-sensitive structures, which are the cranium (the periosteum of the skull), muscles, nerves, arteries and veins, subcutaneous tissues, eyes, ears, sinuses and mucous membranes.
There are a number of different classification systems for headaches. The most well-recognized is that of the International Headache Society. Headache is a non-specific symptom, which means that it has many possible causes. Treatment of a headache depends on the underlying etiology or cause, but commonly involves analgesics.
Here you can find the most common types and how to treat them:
1. DOUBLE-SIDED HEAD SQUEEZER
Symptoms: Daily pain on both sides of the head, which feels as if it is being squeezed.
Possible cause: Medication rebound headaches are caused when you stop taking regular painkillers, triggering withdrawal symptoms.
Taking paracetamol and aspirin more than twice a week or migraine drugs called triptans for more than ten days a month can put you at risk.
“What seems to happen is that pain receptors, which are blocked on a regular basis by medication, become over-sensitive to pain stimuli,” says Dr. Andy Dowson, director of headache services at King’s College London.
“If you stop taking the medicine, the headache comes back with a vengeance.”
Treatment: If the headaches are particularly bad, your doctor may prescribe anti-depressants and anti-epilepsy drugs, which raise your pain threshold.
“The old school of thought was that you go through the process of withdrawal,” says Dr. Andy Dowson.
“Now, we think it may be better to take preventatives – <<rescue pain medication>> – such as antidepressants and some anti-epilepsy drugs.
“These aren’t habit forming, and you can ease off them gradually.”
2. TOP OF THE SKULL HEAD SQUEEZER
Symptoms: Pain accompanied by sensation that the head is pushed from the top or sides.
Possible cause: Stress or tension headaches are common, with 50 to 70% of the population suffering one every month.
While the cause is unclear, it may be that teeth grinding at night triggers the pain – this leads to the muscles in the jaw becoming permanently taut.
Poor posture – being slumped in front of a screen, for instance – is also thought to be a factor, as it causes tension in the neck and shoulder muscles, which can trap nerves to the head.
Treatment: Teeth grinding can be reduced by wearing a mouth guard at night.
A blast of fresh air and painkillers can provide short-term relief.
A 2007 Indian study also showed yoga can reduce chronic tension headache pain by 71%.
“A relaxing massage or hot bath can help to relieve tension,” says Dr. Andy Dowson.
A headache can be a symptom of a number of different conditions of the head and neck
3. HEAD EXPLODER
Symptoms: Dull throbbing pain in the front of your head, feeling of pressure, watery red eyes and fever.
Possible cause: Blocked or inflamed sinuses behind the eyes, nose and cheeks.
The sinuses can swell as a result of infection with bacteria or virus. This often happens during a cold. The inflamed passages block the drainage of mucus. The pain is compounded if the area becomes infected (sinusitis). It can also cause pain in the top teeth.
Treatment: Many sinus headaches subside on their own within a few days.
Over-the-counter medicines including ibuprofen or paracetamol can help reduce inflammation.
See your GP if symptoms continue beyond ten to 14 days, as you may need antibiotics.
4. LIGHT-HEADED HEADACHE
Symptoms: Pain and light-headedness sometimes accompanied by nausea and nervousness.
Possible cause: Coffee lovers and people who drink lots of cola drinks may suffer caffeine withdrawal headaches if they cut back.
It’s thought caffeine interferes with the chemical messenger that widens blood vessels in the brain. The body can’t compensate when caffeine levels suddenly fall.
Treatment: Have no more than 300 mg of caffeine each day – equivalent to three mugs of instant coffee or four cups of tea.
Typical cola drinks contain less than 50 mg of caffeine per can.
5. HEADACHE BEHIND EYES
Symptoms: Constant dull ache behind the eye sockets.
Possible cause: Eye strain can trigger asthenopia headaches, which can be debilitating.
“It’s important to get an early diagnosis because it can sometimes be caused by more serious conditions such as glaucoma or cancer,” says Dr. Clyde Alexander, an optician at Clyde Kobrin in Potters Bar, Herts.
One of the main causes is not wearing the correct glasses or any glasses at all when you need them.
“The ciliary muscles, responsible for flattening the lens and allowing clear vision far away, struggle to hold the lens in the correct position, which can lead to chronic headaches,” says Dr. Clyde Alexander.
People who spend a lot of time looking at screens, even if they don’t need glasses, can also suffer eye-strain headaches.
Treatment: “If you need to work looking at a screen, take short breaks every 20 minutes to allow the muscles in your eyes to relax,” says Dr. Clyde Alexander.
6. CRIPPLING HEADACHE
Symptoms: Severe pain accompanied by sensitivity to light.
Possible cause: Migraine affects around 15% of the population.
“Some people have a predisposition to migraines, which can then be triggered by factors including diet, changes in temperature and even artificial lighting,” says Dr. Andy Dowson.
“The intense pain is thought to stem from the trigeminal nerve, the main nerve in the face (also active in cluster headaches).
“The pain can last for hours and even days if left untreated.”
Treatment: Lying down in a quiet, dark room can help calm nerve cells. Triptan medication, such as Imigran recovery, can help if taken at the onset of symptoms.
If you’re getting weekly migraines and medication isn’t working, doctors may prescribe a low-antidepressant such as amitriptyline.
This works by increasing levels of feelgood brain chemical serotonin.
A recent Swedish study found people who exercised 40 minutes three times a week had the same pain reduction as those who took prescription migraine drug topiramate – it’s thought it stimulates release of pain-killing endorphins.
7. BENDING DOWN HEADACHE
Symptoms: Pain on bending down or moving head side to side.
Possible cause: Not drinking enough to maintain levels of fluid and electrolytes, such as sodium, chloride and potassium, in the body can lead to dehydration.
Experts believe dehydration may cause blood vessels to narrow, reducing the brain’s supply of blood and oxygen.
The brain has no pain receptors, so it is probably receptors in its lining that trigger the discomfort.
Treatment:“Don’t wait until you feel thirsty, and make sure you drink six to eight glasses of fluid a day,” says personal fitness instructor Kathryn Freeland.
8. MONTHLY HEADACHE
Symptoms: Throbbing pain that strikes once a month.
Possible cause: Women often experience headaches during and around the time of their period when levels of oestrogen are very low. The pain can be accompanied by nausea, vomiting or sensitivity to light and sound.
“There’s some evidence that changes in the oestrogen levels make blood vessels in the brain more sensitive, sending them into spasm,” says gynaecologist Mike Bowen from the Saxon Clinic Milton Keynes.
Women going through the menopause tend to experience more headaches, which may also be due to falling oestrogen levels.
Treatment: Over-the-counter pain relief can help, and anecdotal reports suggest alternative remedies containing feverfew and butterbur may provide relief.
A quick fix is an ice pack, applied to the sore area for ten to 15 minutes every hour, to ease inflammation, says Robert Kaniecki, neurologist at the University of Pittsburgh school of medicine.
9. ORGASM HEADACHE
Symptoms: Throbbing or stabbing pain within seconds of orgasm.
Possible cause: No one knows for sure why some people develop intense headaches at the point of orgasm, but it’s probably due to a change in the blood’s chemical composition when a protein is released by nerve cells.
“The first time it happens, it can feel as if you’ve burst a blood vessel and even lead to hospitalization,” says Dr. Andy Dowson.
Men report more sex headaches than women, possibly due to a surge in male hormones. The pain can last from a few minutes to hours.
Treatment: Low-dose aspirin every day may help, but this should never be taken without consulting your doctor.
Otherwise, certain anti-epilepsy drugs may dampen down hyper-excitable nerve cells in the brain.
10. PERFUME HEADACHE
Symptoms: Throbbing headache after using perfume or air freshener spray.
Possible cause: Many fragrances in multiple consumer products contain chemicals that can trigger headaches in sensitive people, and can even lead to migraine.
Several studies suggest that material commonly found in fragrances affect blood circulation in the brain, triggering pain.
“The chemicals most commonly identified in perfumes and fragrances that can cause problems are benzyl alcohol and anisyl alcohol,” says Dr. Andy Dowson.
“Natural ingredients such as clove or cinnamon oil can also cause headaches.”
Treatment: Opt for fragrance-free beauty products.
11. ALARM CLOCK HEADACHES
Symptoms: Excruciating pain that starts in the eye area and spreads to the temples and cheeks. Lasts from 30 minutes to four hours.
Possible cause: Cluster headaches.
Also known as suicide headaches or alarm clock headaches, these tend to come in clusters over a month or so, and strike at the same time each day.
One eye may go red and water and the lid may droop, possibly due to disruptions in the trigeminal nerve, the main nerve in the face. Men are more commonly affected.
The pain is thought to be triggered by an abnormality in the hypothalamus – the area of the brain that co-ordinates the release of various hormones and chemicals.
Faulty messages cause blood vessels in the brain to widen.
This also helps regulate the body’s biological clock.
Treatment: Your doctor can prescribe a preventative drug such as sumatriptan, which is injected and helps shrink the blood vessels.
If an attack comes on – usually without warning – people can take the steroid prednisolone every day for a week, which also helps narrow the vessels.
Heineken has agreed to buy Fraser and Neave’s controlling stake in the maker of Tiger beer in a deal worth 5.6 billion Singapore dollars (US$4.5 billion).
Heineken had raised its bid, from 50, to 53 Singapore dollars per share.
On Saturday, Singapore-based Fraser and Neave confirmed it had accepted an improved offer from the Dutch brewer for its 40% stake in Asia Pacific Investment Pte Ltd (APIPL).
Fraser and Neave shareholders still need to approve the deal in a vote.
Heineken has agreed to buy Fraser and Neave's controlling stake in the maker of Tiger beer in a deal worth 5.6 billion Singapore dollars
APIPL is a joint venture between Heineken and Fraser and Neave which operates Asia Pacific Breweries (APB).
As well as Tiger, APB brews a range of other well-known Asian brands such as Anchor beer, Baron’s Strong Brew, ABC Extra Stout, Archipelago beer and Bintang beer.
Heineken’s chief executive, Jean-François van Boxmeer, said in a statement: “Our Asian headquarters will continue to be based in Singapore, and we remain 100% committed to the growth and success of APB and the Tiger brand.”
If approved, the deal would give Heineken an 81.6% stake in APB triggering an automatic takeover offer for the outstanding shares in the company which would cost a further 2.5 billion Singapore dollars.
As part of the deal, Fraser and Neave has promised not to “solicit, engage in discussions or accept any alternative offer or proposal” for its interests in APB.
This clause refers to a rival bid from the family of Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi who had made a 55 Singapore dollar per share offer for a smaller stake in APB.
Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi controls Thai Beverage (ThaiBev) South East Asia’s second biggest brewer behind San Miguel of the Philippines.
ThaiBev is also Fraser and Neave’s biggest shareholder with a 26.4% stake making it a major power broker in the coming shareholder vote.
Typhoon Kai-Tak has killed at least 27 people as it swept across northern provinces of Vietnam over the weekend, officials have said.
Typhoon Kai-Tak made landfall on Friday, bringing intense rain and strong winds.
Nearly 12,000 houses were damaged and 56,800 acres (23,000 hectares) of cropland were flooded, officials said.
Some of those who died were carried away by floodwaters, one died in a flood-triggered landslide.
Typhoon Kai-Tak has killed at least 27 people as it swept across northern provinces of Vietnam over the weekend
In the capital, Hanoi, where some 200 large trees were uprooted, one taxi driver was killed when a tree fell on his car.
In Bac Giang province a 46-year-old woman died after a hill near her house collapsed in the middle of the night.
On Sunday, parts of Hanoi remained flooded and residents complained that flash floods still posed a risk despite insistence from the authorities that drainage in the capital had been improved.
The Vietnamese army had prepared 20,000 soldiers, along with helicopters, rescue boats and canoes for rescue operations, but only a small number were actually deployed, reports Agence France Presse news agency.
China’s Xinhua news agency said that the typhoon had also left two dead and two others missing as it passed across parts of southern China on Friday, destroying some 4,200 homes in Guangdong province.
Julian Assange has urged the US to end its “witch-hunt” against WikiLeaks, in his first public statement since entering Ecuador’s London embassy.
Julian Assange also called for the release of Bradley Manning, who is awaiting trial in the US accused of leaking classified documents to the Wikileaks site.
He spoke from a balcony at the embassy and thanked Ecuador’s president, who has granted him asylum.
Julian Assange faces extradition to Sweden over sexual assault claims, which he denies.
Julian Assange has urged the US to end its "witch-hunt" against WikiLeaks, in his first public statement since entering Ecuador's London embassy
He said: “As WikiLeaks stands under threat, so does the freedom of expression and the health of all our societies.
“We must use this moment to articulate the choice that is before the government of the United States of America.
“Will it return to and re-affirm the revolutionary values it was founded on?
“Or will it lurch off the precipice, dragging us all into a dangerous and oppressive world in which journalists fall silent under the fear of prosecution and citizens must whisper in the dark?”
The US is carrying out an investigation into WikiLeaks, which has published a mass of leaked diplomatic cables, embarrassing several governments and international businesses.
Alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, 24, an intelligence analyst in the American army who served in Iraq, is alleged to have leaked US government cables to the whistle-blowing website. He is set to face a court martial.
In an interview for US television in 2010, Julian Assange denied any knowledge of Pte Manning.
Julian Assange began his speech by thanking his supporters, many of whom have been holding a vigil outside the building in Knightsbridge.
Speaking of the visit by police officers to the embassy on Wednesday, Julian Assange said: “Inside this embassy after dark, I could hear teams of police swarming up into the building through its internal fire escape. But I knew there would be witnesses and that is because of you.
“If the UK did not throw away the Vienna Conventions the other night it is because the world was watching and the world was watching because you were watching.”
It is an established international convention that local police and security forces are not permitted to enter an embassy, unless they have the express permission of the ambassador.
The Foreign Office has said it remained committed to reaching a “negotiated solution” but following its obligations under the Extradition Act, it would arrest Julian Assange if he left the embassy.
In 2010, two female ex-WikiLeaks volunteers accused Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, of committing sexual offences against them while he was in Stockholm to give a lecture.
Julian Assange claims the sex was consensual and the allegations are politically motivated.
In a statement issued after the Ecuadorean decision to grant Julian Assange political asylum, Foreign Secretary William Hague said the UK was under a “binding obligation” to extradite him to Sweden.
Anti-Japanese protests took place in cities across China after Japan’s nationalists raised their country’s flag on disputed islands.
Thousands of people took to the streets in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and a number of other cities demanding that Japan leave the islands in the East China Sea.
In Shenzhen, some demonstrators attacked Japanese restaurants and smashed Japanese-made cars.
The islands are known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
Early on Sunday, at least 10 activists swam ashore after a flotilla carrying about 150 people reached the Japanese-controlled islands.
Japan’s coast guard is questioning the activists, who had earlier been denied permission to visit the islands.
Anti-Japanese protests took place in cities across China after Japan's nationalists raised their country's flag on disputed islands
However, as news of the action spread, angry protests broke out across China.
In the south-eastern city of Shenzhen, a Japanese-branded police car was overturned and smashed with a metal bar.
Footage carried by Hong Kong Cable TV showed other Japanese-branded cars and restaurants being damaged.
Protesters waved Chinese flags, burned images of the Japanese flag and shouted slogans denouncing Japan’s claims over the islands.
“They [Japan] should return the islands to us and apologize,” said one protester quoted by Reuters news agency.
In neighboring Guangzhou, demonstrators gathered near the Japanese consulate calling on Tokyo to quit the islands.
In Shanghai, protesters held a banner reading “down with Japanese imperialism”.
An estimated 200 demonstrators also marched through central Hong Kong to the Japanese consulate chanting anti-Japanese slogans, broadcaster RTHK reported.
In the south-western city of Chengdu, protests shut down a Japanese department store and a branch of the Japanese clothing store, Uniqlo.
The outbreak of protests was almost certainly sanctioned by the Chinese authorities, as they were well policed.
In the past, the authorities have used anti-Japanese sentiment to deflect criticism of their rule, he says.
The Japanese launched their flotilla on Saturday, saying they wanted to commemorate the Japanese who died near the islands in World War II.
Early on Sunday, 10 members of the group swam ashore to one of the islets and waved Japanese flags, emulating pro-China activists who had made the same gesture during a previous trip.
One of the politicians on the flotilla, Kenichi Kojima, told AFP news agency: “I want to show the international community that these islands are ours. It is Japan’s future at stake.”
Earlier this week, pro-Chinese activists sailed to the disputed island chain from Hong Kong in a protest aimed at promoting Chinese sovereignty.
Some of the activists were deported by Japan, and others sailed away from the islands.
The disputed islands – which lie on a vital shipping lane and are surrounded by deposits of gas – are also claimed by Taiwan.
Rows over them have caused Sino-Japanese ties to freeze in the past.
In September 2010, relations plummeted after the arrest of a Chinese trawler captain near the islands.
The captain was accused of ramming two Japanese patrol vessels in the area, but Japan eventually dropped the charges against him.
China claims the islands have been a part of its territory since ancient times, but Japan says it took control of the archipelago in the late 1890s after making sure they were uninhabited.
Mark Shriver, who is a prominent member of the Kennedy clan, has pulled the curtain on some family secrets in his new book about his father, Robert Sargent Shriver Jr., A Good Man.
“We all have a drinker in the family,” Mark Shriver quipped, referring to his clan’s checkered past.
“We all have the eccentric aunt, problems with drugs.”
Mark Shriver, 48, who is the senior vice president for the charity Save the Children met with about 50 friends and family at the Mid-Cape Democratic Campaign Headquarters in Hyannis, Massachusetts, on Wednesday for a book reading.
During the reading, Maria Shriver’s brother has revealed that “people in his family had always suspected” that President Richard Nixon leaked a story to the media that Mark Shriver’s older brother, Robert “Bobby” Shriver, and cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had been arrested by police on Cape Cod on marijuana possession charges as teenagers.
Mark Shriver has pulled the curtain on some Kennedy family secrets in his new book about his father, Robert Sargent Shriver Jr., A Good Man
According to a New York Post source who present at the literary gathering, the Democratic Party operator was very funny while regaling the small crowd with stories of his father and mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the celebrated founder of the Special Olympics.
“One person in the audience told him he could be a comedian,” the unnamed attendee said.
Mark Shriver told his guests how in 1970, his brother and cousin, who were both 16 at the time, were busted on drug charges in Hyannis Port, which were dismissed after a year of probation.
However, that story ended up on the front page of every newspaper in the country, leading the Kennedy clan to believe that then-President Richard Nixon, a Republican, was behind the leak.
Two years later, Mark Shriver’s father unsuccessfully ran against Richard Nixon on Democrat George McGovern’s ticket.
Years later, Sargent Shriver joked: “I always wanted to be private and anonymous. That’s why in 1972 I ran with George McGovern.”
Mark Shirver’s book paints an intimate and touching portrait of his special relationship with his father, who passed away in 2011 after a battle with Alzheimer’s, AARP blog reported.
Sargent “Sarge” Shriver is best known for launching the Peace Corps and being the architect of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. Among the many jobs he had held during his 95 years, Sarge Shriver also spent two years serving as the U.S. ambassador to France.
During Wednesday’s book reading, Mark Shriver also revealed that his father planned President John F. Kennedy’s funeral following his 1963 assassination in Dallas when his widow, Jackie Kennedy, asked him to help.
In his private life, Sarge Shriver was widely regarded as a loving and tender father who would every night hand-write a note to each of his five children, telling they how proud he was of them, and calling each one “numero uno”.
The intimate book reading was attended by several Kennedys, among them Anthony Kennedy Shriver, who Mark Shriver joked “only came for the free food”.
The backlash against Kristen Stewart has taken a strange turn with a T-shirt company selling tops with “Kristen Stewart Is A Trampire” splashed across the front.
The custom shirt company called Skreened.com is obviously trying to cash in on Kristen Stewart’s affair with her Snow Whiteand the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders.
The shirts sell for $20.99 and are available on the company’s website in several colors.
The website also offers a series of other shirts related to the cheating scandal including one that says “Robert Pattinson deserves better”.
The unflattering “trampire” moniker is believed to have been started by comedian Will Ferrell.
Skreened.com is obviously trying to cash in on Kristen Stewart's affair with her Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders
Earlier this month, he appeared on TV talk show Conan and “broke down” over the actress’ split from Robert Pattinson – who she first met on the set of vampire franchise The Twilight Saga.
When host Conan O’Brien asked a forlorn Will what was wrong with him the comedy actor jokingly opened his heart over his feelings about the cheating scandal.
In what appeared to be a spoof of super-fan Nutty Madam’s tearful video post about Kristen’s cheating, he said: “I don’t know if you follow the news at all, but there’s this actress, Kristen Stewart and she goes by K-Stew, and she had a boyfriend Robert Pattinson – he’s R-Patz – and she cheated on him.
“And they’ve broken up, they’re not going to get back together, ever. What they had was so special Conan, you don’t even know what they had, they were in love and she just threw it all away.”
Pretending to hold back tears, he added: “I don’t know if there was anything I could have done to prevent this.
“I don’t know what it means to the Twilight franchise. It’s not going to be fine ever!”
He shouted: “It’s never going to be fine. She is a trampire, that’s what she is.”
The audience cheered loudly as he called Kristen a “trampire”.
Kristen Stewart, 22, and Robert Pattinson, 26, have both moved out of their Los Angeles home, and the heartbroken actor is staying at his friend Reese Witherspoon’s holiday home in California as he tries to get over his heartbreak.
For now there are no such T-shirts on Skreened.com with Rupert Sanders’ name on them.
