Former U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker charged with drunken driving

Saturday 31 August 2013

Olympia, Sep 1 (Newswire): Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan Ryan Crocker is facing drunken driving and hit-and-run charges in Washington state after his vehicle collided with a truck last week, authorities said.
 
Crocker, who stepped down from his job as ambassador to Afghanistan earlier this year because of ill health, recorded twice the legal limit when he took a blood alcohol breath test after the accident, State Trooper Troy Briggs said.
 
After sitting at a red light in Spokane in eastern Washington on the afternoon of August 14, Crocker attempted to make a right turn from the left lane when he collided with a truck, he said.
 
"He tried to make it in front of the truck, but didn't quite make it," Briggs said.
 
Crocker has pleaded not guilty to the charges, court officials said. His attorney, Julie Twyford, could not immediately be reached for comment.
 
After the accident, Crocker drove away and was followed by another driver for several miles before pulling into the parking lot of a bank, where state patrol officers arrested him, Briggs said. Neither Crocker nor the truck driver was injured.
 
Crocker, who was driving a 2009 Ford Mustang convertible, appeared to be intoxicated when officers approached him, Briggs said. He was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol after taking the breath test, he added.
 
Both the DUI and the hit-and-run charges are gross misdemeanors, and Crocker faces a maximum fine of $5,000 and a maximum of 364 days in jail for each.
 
A career diplomat, Crocker has also served as ambassador in Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon. He was stationed at the U.S. embassy in Beirut when it was bombed by Islamist militants in 1983 during the Lebanese civil war, and when a U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon was attacked later that year.
 
Crocker, a Spokane native, retired from the government in April 2009, becoming dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. He later came out of retirement to take the demanding Kabul post in July 2011.
 
Crocker, who in 2009 received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian award, is next due in court for a pre-trial hearing on September 12 at Spokane County District Court, court officials said.

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Afghan force to protect NATO bases

Kabul, Sep 1 (Newswire): The Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF) is ready to provide security to NATO military bases throughout the country, according to an Afghan minister.
 
Speaking at a news briefing, APPF Deputy Minister Mujtaba Patang said the remaining 37 private security firms, which currently protect NATO facilities in Afghanistan, would be dissolved and replaced with the APPF personnel by March 2013.
 
The announcement comes in the wake of a rise in attacks against NATO-led troops by Afghan security personnel or Taliban militants clad in military or police uniforms.
 
The assaults, called green-on-blue or insider attacks, have caused the deaths of at least 40 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops this year.
 
All troops at NATO headquarters in Kabul and all bases across Afghanistan have recently been ordered to carry loaded weapons around the clock.
 
Patang said that the loyalty of APPF personnel was guaranteed by their tribal leaders and provincial council members and that there was no enemy infiltration within these forces.
 
The APPF currently has 30,000 personnel, and the number is expected to rise to 100,000 after 2014, when foreign troops complete their withdrawal from the war-torn country.
 
NATO has supported the move towards a public security force staffed by Afghans and has been helping to train the APPF personnel since 2010.

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Taliban blamed for 25 pc of 'insider attacks' on US troops in Afghanistan

Washington, Sep 1 (Newswire): The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said that the Taliban is responsible for a greater share of 'insider attacks' on U.S. troops than earlier believed.
 
U.S. General John Allen said that about 25 percent of all so-called 'green-on-blue' attacks were the result of the Taliban infiltrating into Afghan forces.
 
Allen's claims come days after the Pentagon said that an internal review has shown only about 10 percent of all insider assaults could be attributed to the insurgency.
 
"We think it's about 25%," news 24 quoted Allen, as saying.
 
According to the report, Allen said that the Islamist insurgency was anxious to exploit the incidents for propaganda purposes.
 
"The Taliban try to take credit for every one of these attacks, whether it's a personal grievance or whether it's a successful infiltration," he said.
 
Allen said that the attacks were caused by a number of factors, including not just Taliban infiltration but "disagreements, animosity which may have grown between the individual shooter and our forces in general, or a particular grievance".
 
Afghan officials said that 'infiltration by foreign spy agencies' into the ranks of Afghan government forces was to be blamed for the rise in attacks by Afghan soldiers.
 
Allen said that the Afghan Government, however, had not yet shared any information with NATO that proved foreign spies were supposedly behind the incidents.
 
"I'm looking forward to Afghanistan providing us with the intelligence that permits them to come to that conclusion so that we can understand how they've drawn that conclusion and we could add that into our analysis," Allen said.
 
The death toll of US troops from insider attacks this year has reached 40

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Daily diet: The controversy over salt

Islamabad, Sep 1 (Newswire): Table salt, kosher salt, sea salt, sel de gris, fine grained, course ground, rock salt, herbed salt, garlic salt—the varieties are endless.

Someone could open a salt store as big as a Starbucks and be able to fill all the shelves. We love salt and while it is essential to our bodies, overdosing on this popular flavor enhancer can be detrimental to our health, and there's the rub.

While you can find a salt shaker on every home and restaurant table, in almost every packaged product at the supermarket, and in 90 percent of recipes (desserts included), Americans tend to overconsume on the small white granules.

Salt helps to maintain the water content in blood, balances blood's acids and bases, and is essential for the movement of electrical charges in the nerves that move our muscles. But too much of a good thing can lead to high blood pressure and heart disease. In addition, a diet high in salt content is often associated with weight gain.

The National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association recommends a diet containing no more than 2.4 grams (approximately 1 teaspoon) of sodium per day.

On the average, American men consume 10.4 grams of salt, while American women average a salt intake of 7.3 grams daily. These numbers continue to rise, with 75 to 80 percent of all salt consumed coming from processed food.

The First Lady has spoken out about the need to limit salt in her campaign against obesity, and some manufacturers have gotten on the bandwagon, announcing cuts in sodium levels in their processed foods.

Kraft pledged a 10 percent reduction, which translates into the elimination of over 10 million pounds of salt in over 1,000 processed food items.

Additionally, a panel from the Institute of Medicine recommended that the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regulate the amount of sodium used in processed food, citing decades of recommendations that have not been heeded by the public.

Given the amount of processed food purchased in this country, the belief is that the best way to reduce salt consumption is by regulating the companies preparing the food.

Now the salt industry is pushing back. Cargill, one of the nation's largest producers of salt, has hired food luminary Alton Brown to stump for sodium.

The most recent ad, called Salt 101, has Brown trying to convince us that we need to have "plenty of salt in your kitchen at all times."

And while we do "need" it, we need it in lesser amounts than we are currently consuming and the food industry is loathe to lower or eliminate salt in its products, because of the flavor-enhancing capabilities.

The answer could just be in cooking your own fresh food rather than relying on packaged ingredients. Doing so would eliminate the overuse of sodium, and overall would be healthier for you.

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Increased incidence in asthma in children linked to burger consumption

Islamabad, Sep 1 (Newswire): Diet and lifestyle affect everything from weight to heart disease to diabetes and increased cholesterol.

Not surprisingly, a diet heavy on fast food burgers is having an effect on our children—not just their waistlines but in an increased incidence of asthma.

While it might not be burgers, per se, that cause the asthma, the lifestyle associated with eating fast food multiple times per week is a strong possibility.

A group of researchers from Germany, Spain and Britain studied existing data on 50,000 children in twenty countries around the world, finding that nations that had diets heavy on junk food had a higher incidence of asthma in children.

Lead researcher Gabriele Nagel, of the Institute of Epidemiology at Ulm University in Germany, said,  "This is a sign that the link is not strongly related to the food itself, but that burgers are a proxy for other lifestyle and environmental factors like obesity and lack of exercise."

Conversely, those children whose diet was heavy on fish, fruits and vegetables had a lower incidence of asthma. Nagel explained that diets high in fruits and vegetables "contain antioxidants and other biologically active factors which may contribute to the favorable effect."

Foods those are heavy and high in fat have a double whammy effect on asthmatics by causing inflammation of the airway and inhibiting their response to albuterol, a common asthma medication.

Australian researchers with the University of Newcastle presented evidence last month at a health conference in New Orleans that high-fat foods play a role in airway inflammation.

Asthma occurs when the lungs become inflamed and constricted. When the airway is also inflamed, there is a significant impact on already difficult breathing conditions.

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A dash of humour keeps you healthy

Islamabad, Sep 1 (Newswire): A dash of humour keeps people healthy and increases their chances of reaching the retirement age.

But after the age of 70, the health benefits of humour decrease, according to researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

The study is based on a comprehensive database from the second Nor-Trøndelag Health Study, called HUNT 2, which comprises health histories and blood samples collected in 1995-97 from more than 70,000 residents of a county in mid-Norway.

"There is reason to believe that sense of humour continues to have a positive effect on mental health and social life, even after people have become retirees," says project leader Sven Svebak, a professor of neuroscience at NTNU.

"The positive effect on life expectancy could not be shown after the age of 75. At that point, genetics and biological aging are of greater importance," he added. Svebak and colleagues evaluated people's sense of humour with three questions from a test designed to measure only friendly humour.

He believes there are many myths and misunderstandings about humour. For example, one myth is that happy people have a better sense of humour than people who are more serious.

"But it is not enough to be full of laughter, as we say in Trondelag. Humour is all about ways of thinking and often occurs in a process or in dialogue with others. It does not need to be externalised," he says.

"What people think is fun, is a different matter. Commonly, people with the same sense of humour tend to enjoy themselves together and can communicate humour without huge gestures. A twinkle in the eye can be more than enough," Svebak said. These findings have just been published in the International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine.

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