Dubai’s Weight Loss Challenge: 1 Gram Gold Per Kilo Lost
Need some motivation to cut that flab? If you live in Dubai, you can win gold to do just that. A new campaign âYou are Worth … Your Weight in Goldâ is aimed at promoting a healthy lifestyle and achieving optimal body weight. The contest is open for public.Â
The winner will be the one who loses maximum weight during the program period of 30 days from its inception on Friday this week. The top three winners will get a gold coin equivalent to AED 20,000. Other participants will get a gram of gold for each kilo reduced from their body weight. However, the minimum weight to lose for the eligibility is two kilograms.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, Dubai Municipality officials said the winners will get two grams of gold if they could reduce at least two kilograms within one month.Â
Hussain Nasser Lootah, director-general of Dubai Municipality, said the initiative comes after the grand success of âYallah Walkâ campaign launched in 2011.
âIt is also aimed at introducing walking tracks in different parks in the city of Dubai. Walking is an easy and economic way to stay fit and healthy. The municipality has provided residents with safe and accessible walking tracks in urban and rural areas,â Lootah said.
âCurrently Dubai has a total of 91 places where one can practice sport activities. These include residential parks, public parks, jogging track and beaches. In addition to this, every year the civic body opens new parks in more areas and adds sports equipments and tools for the public to promote a healthy community, he said.Â
âRamadan is the most appropriate season to launch such initiatives as it reminds us about many health benefits of reducing weight and encourages us to take strong steps to change our bad lifestyles,â he added.Â
The weight of each participant will be measured during registration and at the end of program. Participants can register at the event sites any day during the period. Participants must have excess weight to reduce and stay away from unhealthy methods to lose weight.
The final weight will be measured after the Eid holidays on Aug. 16.
Ahmed bin Sulayem, executive chairman of Dubai Multi Commodities Center (DMCC), said the DMCC is proud to support this health awareness drive to encourage society to change their daily routines in return for a healthier lifestyle.
âWe would highly encourage everyone from all walks of life to take part in this great initiative and hope DMCCâs contribution of AED 100,000 worth of gold coins will help motivate individuals reach the final target of improving and sustaining a healthy lifestyle and consequently a better quality of life,â he said.
âI am sure Dubai can be the role model and astonish the world by its innovative ideas and initiatives,â said Anil Dhanak, general manager of Dubai Gold & Jewelry Group.”
Asiana, You Have Bigger Problems Than the Pranked Pilot Names
Asiana, when four pilots cannot land a jet on an airstrip on a sunny day with clear visibility, you already have reputation problems. The prank didn’t harm your pilots’ reputations; crashing the plane harmed their reputations.
One commenter on the original post said they are sending their lawyer Mie Su Yu.
Name that Country: A Most Difficult Challenge
This morning, as I was praying for Panama – there is always a diocese listed in the daily lectionary to be prayed for somewhere in the world – I was thinking how I know where Panama is. When we are praying for Nigeria, there are names I haven’t heard of. I now Lagos, and Port Harcourt, but where is Abuja? Owerri? I go to GoogleEarth and look them up.
I struggle with how little the average American knows about geographical location. It’s just embarrassing. Through all the years I lived abroad, most of the time, unless it was Germany, people couldn’t quite place where I was living. Many had heard of Tunisia; we had troops there in World War II, and Saudi Arabia, because they had seen it often enough on the news, but the rest of the Arab Gulf, Jordan, Syria, North Africa – beyond them.
Then, on the first night of one of my grad classes, the professor handed us this map and gave us ten minutes to put in the appropriate country names. He did not, thanks be to God, ask us to put in capitals. Not a single one of us got them all, and this was a class full of nation-oriented people.
It was also on the final exam, three months later, and most of us got them all right – thanks to some fervent cramming and study groups.
Here are a couple more maps, in case you are feeling cocky. See if you can accurately fill in the name of each country:
Bonne chance!
Korean Air Pilots Mistakenly Identified in TV News Prank: Sum Ting Wong
Someone will lose their job, if it is ever discovered who pranked this totally politically incorrect news broadcast. Â This from Reuters via Huffington Post on AOL:
NTSB Intern Mistakenly Confirmed To KTVU Wrong Asiana Names, Statement Says
(Please note offensive language in paragraph 6)
July 12 (Reuters) – The National Transportation Safety Board apologized on Friday after an intern mistakenly confirmed to a local television station racially offensive fake names for the pilots of an Asiana flight that crashed in San Francisco.
“The National Transportation Safety Board apologizes for inaccurate and offensive names that were mistakenly confirmed as those of the pilots of Asiana flight 214, which crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6,” the NTSB said in a statement.
“Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft,” the NTSB said.
The crash of the Boeing 777 plane resulted in the deaths of three teenage girls in a group of students from eastern China who were visiting the United States for a summer camp, one of whom died on Friday in the hospital. Over 180 passengers and crew members were injured.
On Friday, an anchor for Oakland, California, station KTVU read a list of the supposed names of the pilots of the South Korean carrier on its noon broadcast after an employee apparently called the NTSB seeking to verify them.
The names appear to mock the events of the crash. The prank names were: Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk and Bang Ding Ow.
The Shrink-Wrapped Pensacola Specialty Pawn Shop Car
How cool is this? We saw this car at Taco Rock and loved the optical illusion. We also loved it that the car makes a memorable impression; you’ll think of it and you will think Pensacola Specialty Pawn. It’s an effective ad if you remember who the ad is for đ
When we walked inside, AdventureMan asked “Whose car is that with the mobster paint job?” and a guy picking up a take-out order grinned and said it was his. He told us it was a shrink-wrap technique – it’s temporary! When you get tired of it and want to try something else, it just peels off and you put something else on. I think that is so totally cool.
Once-A-Year Burger at Red Robin’s
AdventureMan and I are not vegetarian; we eat a lot of fish and we try not to eat a lot of beef, pork or lamb. Lamb isn’t so much of a problem here in Pensacola – you don’t even see it on the menu that often. But pork – and beef – are everywhere.
Once a year I have a burger. Really. AdventureMan will order a burger more often, and I might take one bite here and there, but once a year, usually around the 4th of July, I will have my onec-a-year burger.
(Do you have any idea how many calories one burger has in a resturant? It’s all the extras, the bacons, the sauces, the fried onions, it can be two days worth of calories in ONE burger. It can seriously clog your veins in as little as two hours after you eat one. )
Because I only have one, it has to be a really really good one. I got hooked on Red Robin burgers back in university; then, Red Robin was really a college beer joint that served really good burgers.  I ordered the A-1 Peppercorn Burger, but when it came, it came on some kind of a roll đŚ not the real hamburger bun.
It was everything I had hoped for – and more. The meat was cooked perfectly, not overdone; juicy and not greasy. The bacon (yes, yes, I did. It’s just once a year) was crisp. The sauce was peppery, just the way I like it. And yes, I ate the onion rings, too.
Now I’m good for another year đ
“Heavyweight Saudi Arabia” Influence Counters “Over-Stepping” Qatar?
From the Kuwait Times, a fascinating comparative analysis of the influence of Saudi Arabia and Qatar on Islamic countries in transitions:
Qatar losing ground to Saudi diplomacy
DUBAI: Qatar, a key supporter of Islamists who rose to power in Arab Spring countries, is losing ground in regional politics to Saudi Arabia which appears to have seized the reins on key issues, notably Egypt and Syria. The decline in Qatarâs regional diplomacy comes as its powerful emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani unexpectedly abdicated in favor of his son Tamim last month.
The wealthy Gulf state had transformed itself into a key regional player but began to retreat as heavyweight Saudi Arabia re-entered the political arena after lagging behind in the immediate period following the eruption of the Arab Spring uprisings in December 2010. The ouster of Egyptâs Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last week by the army and the election by the Syrian opposition of Saudi-linked Ahmad Assi Jarba as new leader stripped Qatar of strong influence in both countries.
âQatar had tried to take a leading role in the region but overstepped its limits by openly backing the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria, and other Arab Spring states,â said Kuwaiti political analyst Ayed Al-Manna. Jonathan Eyal, head of international relations at Britainâs Royal United Services Institute, argued that Qatarâs regional politics have failed.
âQatarâs Middle Eastern diplomacy now lies in ruins: it failed to produce dividends in Libya, backfired in Syria and has now collapsed in Egypt,â local Emirati daily The National quoted him on Tuesday as saying. Realizing the damaging effects of their policies, Manna noted, âthe Qataris sought to cut down on their commitmentsâ which were already affected by the emirâs abdication and the sidelining of the influential prime minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jabr Al-Thani.
As a result, âSaudi Arabia, a historical regional US ally, regained its roleâ in coordination with other oil-rich Gulf monarchies, said Manna. Saudi Arabiaâs King Abdullah was the first foreign head of state to congratulate Egyptâs interim president Adly Mansour, hours after he was named to replace Morsi. And on Tuesday, the kingdom pledged $5 billion in assistance to Egypt. The United Arab Emirates, which has cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood in the past few months, offered Egypt an aid package of $3 billion.
âSaudi Arabia wants to ensure stability in Arab Spring countries, regardless of its ideological interests,â said analyst Abdel Aziz Al-Sagr, head of the Gulf Research Centre. âIt had supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt but reconsidered this support after the Brotherhood failed to run the country wisely,â he argued. But the Saudi researcher downplayed the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both of which have been looking to expand their influence during the Arab Spring uprisings and prevent any potential revolt against their own autocratic regimes.
âThe Saudi-Qatari harmony still exists and there is no battle for influence between the two countries,â said Sager. And as proof, âRiyadh was the first to be informed of the political change in Qatar, six months before it took place. And it welcomed it.â But the two countries, whose relations have been historically tense or at least marked by mistrust, support two different approaches of political Islam that emerged strongly in the wake of the Arab Spring.
Qatar sides with political parties linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose experience was cut short despite the strong media support they enjoyed from the influential Doha-based Al-Jazeera news channel. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia promotes Salafist groups that focus less on politics and more on implementing Shariah Islamic law on daily life matters such as forcing women to wear a veil and prohibiting the mixing between sexes. Saudi King Abdullah has reiterated his countryâs stance against using Islam for political purposes.
âIslam rejects divisions in the name of one party or another,â he said in a statement marking the start Wednesday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The kingdom will never acceptâ the presence of political parties, that âonly lead to conflict and failure.â But regardless of the political agendas of Saudi Arabia or Qatar, the people who rose up during the Arab Spring revolts will have the final word on their own political futures, argued former Bahraini cabinet minister Ali Fakhro. âIt is the Arab people, not Qatar nor Saudi Arabia, who will determine the political future of the region.â â AFP
Pacific Northwest Natives Have DNA Link 5,000 years
Don’t you love technology? It’s like working on a complex puzzle, and all of a sudden seeing how disparate pieces relate đ This is a fascinating discovery from AOL/Huffpost:
Ancient DNA Linked To Living Descendants In Genetic Study
The Huffington Post  | By Macrina Cooper-White Posted: 07/09/2013 2:24 pm EDT  |  Updated: 07/09/2013 9:12 pm EDT
What if you could trace your ancestry back to around 5,000 years ago? Researchers were able to do just that in a fascinating new DNA study, which found adirect genetic link between the ancient remains of Native Americans and their living relatives.
“It’s very exciting to be able to have scientific proof that corroborates what our ancestors have been telling us for generations,” study co-author and participant Joycelynn Mitchell said in a written statement. “It’s very amazing how fast technology is moving to be able to prove this kind of link with our past.”
In the study, U.S. and Canadian researchers used mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequencing to analyze DNA inherited exclusively through mothers. Looking at the mitogenome is cheap, easier to sequence than nuclear DNA, and skirts around the problem that European men mixed with Native American women.
The researchers collected DNA from 60 living indigenous people belonging to the Tsimshian, Haida and Nisga’a tribes in the northern coast of British Columbia. The tribes’ oral histories and archaeological sites indicate they have lived in the region for generations, which made them good candidates for tracing their lineage back so many years.
Complete mitogenomes were extracted from the remains of four Mid-Holocene individuals found in British Columbia’s Lucy Islands and Dodge Island, and then that information was compared to the DNA of the study participants.
What was found? The research team discovered one of the living individuals carried this same “mitogenomic signature” as a young adult female who lived on Dodge Island 2,500 years ago — which also matched the mitogenome of the remains of a woman who lived in the Lucy Islands 5,500 years ago. Wow.
Three other living participants had mitogenomes that linked back to the remains of another individual found on Dodge Island, who may have lived around 5,000 years ago.
âThis is the beginning of the golden era for ancient DNA research because we can do so much now that we couldn’t do a few years ago because of advances in sequencing technologies,â study co-author Dr. Ripan Malhi, an anthropology professor at the University of Illinois and Institute for Genomic Biology professor, said in a written statement. âWeâre just starting to get an idea of the mitogenomic diversity in the Americas, in the living individuals as well as the ancient individuals.â
The new study was published online on June 3, 2013 in the journal PLoSONE.
Kuwait has Highest BMI in the World
The countries which contain the heaviest and lightest citizens can be revealed today.
This extraordinary graphic shows the average body mass index values for adults around the globe – with some surprising results.
With its wealthy society and love of fast food outlets, many would place the U.S. at the top of the list.
But it is pipped to first place in the body mass index chart by Kuwait. The Arab state has an average body mass index of 27.5 for men and 31.4 for women.
This beats America in second place which averages 26.5 for men and 29 for women.
From UPI:
Mexico is world fattest nation, United States No. 2
UNITED NATIONS, July 10 (UPI) —Â Officials at the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization say Mexico with a 32.8 percent adult obesity rate is the most overweight of the industrialized nations.
Previously, the United States with an adult obesity rate of 31.8 percent was the world’s fattest nation. Last year, the percentage of U.S. adults overweight went down slightly.
A report by the FAO said Mexico’s widely available inexpensive junk food and penetration of U.S. fast-food chains combined with a more sedentary lifestyle all contributed to Mexico’s bulging waistline.
About 70 percent of Mexican adults are overweight, while childhood obesity tripled in a decade and about a third of teenagers are overweight as well, the Global Post said.
Weight-related diabetes claims 1-of-6 one of Mexican adults — or 70,000 people a year — suffering from the disease each year, the report said.
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