Month: January 2014

By Stephanie Nebehay MONTREUX, Switzerland (Reuters) – The United Nations hopes that political talks between the warring sides in Syria will clinch local ceasefires to allow vital food and medicines to reach millions of civilians, the U.N. humanitarian chief said on Thursday. Valerie Amos, in an interview with Reuters a day after an international conference on Syria, said mediator Lakhdar Brahimi would press the government and opposition on these humanitarian issues at meetings due to start later in the day. The two sides, meeting for the first time, vented their mutual hostility on Wednesday but Brahimi said the enemies may be ready to discuss prisoner swaps, local ceasefires and humanitarian aid. And as we saw yesterday, there are big differences between the parties," Amos said in an interview in Montreux, Switzerland.

By Jared Ferrie YANGON (Reuters) – Security forces in western Myanmar massacred at least 40 Rohingya Muslims last week, including women and children, a human rights group said on Thursday, quoting witness accounts, despite official denials of the killings. Bangkok-based Fortify Rights said it spoke to witnesses and other credible sources who confirmed the massacre, which would be the deadliest incident in western Rakhine state since October 2012, when ethnic Rakhine Buddhists fought minority Rohingya Muslims. Rakhine state government spokesman Win Myaing told Reuters on Thursday that he visited the area and found no evidence of mass killings.

“Find Out Anything from Anyone, Anytime: Secrets of Calculated Questioning From a Veteran Interrogator” by James O. Pyle and Maryann Karinch won’t help you force a hostile to reveal state secrets, but it does suggest ways to turn someone who’s on the fence into spilling what you want to know. “There are two things people will not give you for free: money and information,” says Pyle, who plied his craft in the  U.S. Army, the Army Intelligence Center and School and the Joint Intelligence of the Pentagon.

Taking over-the-counter medication to reduce a fever might help a person to feel better, but may also be increasing the spread of the virus, according to a new Canadian study. Higher body temperatures help to kill viral and bacterial infections and prevent bacteria and viruses from replicating. But people are increasingly taking medications that contain ingredients including ibuprofen, acetaminophen and acetylsalicylic acid to suppress fevers and other flu symptoms. According to the study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society, an individual whose fever has been reduced is also likely to feel better and is therefore more likely to interact with others, and spread the pathogen.

… for 2014, consumers associate talk of dieting with failed weight loss attempts. … told Food Navigator that more can be done to promote natural sugar …

By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Chinese units of the global "Big Four" accounting firms should be suspended from auditing U.S.-listed companies for six months, a judge in the United States ruled, in an escalation in a long-running dispute over regulators' access to documents. In a harshly worded 112-page ruling, Securities and Exchange Commission Administrative Law Judge Cameron Elliot censured the Chinese affiliates of KPMG, Deloitte & Touche, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst and Young. Elliot, an SEC judge who operates independently, sided with the SEC and said the companies "willfully" failed to give U.S. regulators the audit work papers of certain Chinese companies under investigation for accounting fraud. They're putting pressure on us because they think we can influence the regulators in China, which is absolutely not correct," said Paul Winkelmann, the partner in charge of risk and compliance for PwC in Greater China.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's uninsured rate dropped modestly this month as the major coverage expansion under President Barack Obama's health care law got underway, according to a closely watched survey released Thursday.