Feast and Famine in South -Africa

Despite an increase in obesity in South Africa, more than half of South Africans do not have reliable access to food.

This paradox has been revealed in the results of the first South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (SANHANES-1) released by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in Pretoria on Tuesday.

The survey, which was conducted in 2012, saw 25 532 individuals complete a questionnaire-based interview; 12 025 participants undergo a physical examination by a medical doctor; and 8 078 participants provide blood samples to test for "biomarkers" of disease.

Overall, a quarter of South Africans surveyed (26%) were experiencing hunger and a further 28.3% were at risk of hunger. Only 45.6% of the population surveyed enjoyed food security (access to enough food at all times).

Food security was highest in the Western Cape and lowest in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo. Though most of the children interviewed said that it was important to start the day with breakfast, a third of them went to school hungry, and more than half did not take a lunchbox to school.

Fat nation

While almost half of the population suffers from hunger at times, a significant number of South Africans is overweight and, most of them are women.

According to the survey, 39.2% of women were overweight, compared to 24.8% in men. When compared to the 2003 South African Demographic and Health Survey (SADHS), the survey shows that obesity increased substantially in females, from 27% in 2003 to 39.2% in 2012.

Further findings include that women had an alarming average Body Mass Index (BMI) of 28.9, while men had a BMI of 23.6. A BMI between 25 and 29.9 indicates that a person is overweight. (Anything over 30 indicates obesity.)

Half of the women surveyed had a waist circumference over 88cm, which puts them at greater risk of lifestyle diseases such as heart disease,diabetes,hypertension, and elevated cholesterol.

Alarmingly, South Africa's preschool children are among the fattest in the world. The survey has found that 22.9% of SA children between two and five years were overweight. That is double the figure of preschool obesity in other African countries such as Morocco, Swaziland, Botswana, and Nigeria (11%) – and the US (12%).

This does not bode well for the future health of our nation.

"It is clear that South Africa is heading for disaster, judging from the high percentage of people living with chronic lifestyle diseases in the country, with overweight and obesity being strong risk factors for these diseases," the HSRC warns.

High blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes

According to the survey, 10.2% of participants aged 15 years and older had high blood pressure (blood pressure higher than 140/90mmHg), and a further 10.4% were pre-hypertensive (blood pressure between 120-139/80-89mmHg).

When it comes to cholesterol levels, one out of four participants aged 15 years and older had an abnormally high serum total (23.9%) and LDL "bad" cholesterol (28.8%), and one out of two (47.9%) had an abnormally low HDL "good" cholesterol.

Almost one out of five participants (18.4%) had impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), a pre-diabetic state of hyperglycaemia that is associated with insulin resistance and increased risk of cardiovascular pathology. IGT may precede type 2 diabetes by many years.

Diabetes was diagnosed in 9.5% of participants.

Achieving a healthy weight and exercising regularly can play a big role in reducing the risk of these lifestyle diseases. Sadly, however, many South Africans are not only overweight, but also very unfit: 27.9% of men and 45.2% of women who participated in the survey had failed their fitness tests.

Lagos and Niger Delta’s Oil

Written by Japhet Omojuwa :

If there is anything you should never be, it is being “an average Nigerian.” They know everything yet know nothing. They discuss what they don’t know like they earned doctorates studying its ignorance. They can rationalize any idiocy and make the declaration of same sound like words from the Holy Scriptures. The average Nigerian starts an argument and ends it without learning any new thing. On social media, the average Nigerian could be a viral disaster. A lot of nonsense has been going on about Lagos and the relocation of certain persons of Anambra origin. But the daftest of the lot has to be the claim by yet another average Nigerian that Lagos was developed by Niger Delta’s oil. It is the most stupid thing ever said even by an “average Nigerian.”

I respect people from all places but no matter how hard I try I’d never get over my contempt for people who think their village or origin is the centre of the world. That before their people came to the world the world never existed and the world would cease to exist if their people deemed it surplus to necessity. I do not agree with Chief Femi Fani-Kayode that the Yoruba people alone developed Lagos. That does not fit into my understanding of the fact that a city cannot attain development without outside influence. The British for instance should get some credit for the development of Lagos. They will of course not get the whole credit because Lagos existed before them too. There was no Niger Delta oil in 1861 but there was Lagos long before it became a British Colony. Lagos was one of the biggest trade hubs on the continent and it has always been a melting pot of cultures and civilizations. Lagos has a political history that dates back into some five centuries.

It is like saying Niger Delta’s oil developed Kano. This is what an average Nigerian would say. Before there were rigs in Rivers, there were pyramids in Kano. Before the oil pipelines, there were irrigation lines in the farms and dams across Nigeria. Agro-allied industries thrived. When oil came, the money from agriculture was its seed investment. Nigeria had a budget before the oil boom, we had a national income and it was not dropping from heaven like the manna of the Israelites. People who cannot see beyond what they can see today are trapped in the darkness of time. They live in a trapped existence, a reality that fits them into one dimension, only existing in the present. They have no sense of yesterday and no imagination of tomorrow. As far as an average Nigerian goes “as it is right now, is what it was yesterday and so will it be when tomorrow comes.” Such pitiful primordial mentality.

Those who do not know should ask questions. That Lagos today generates record tax numbers is not something that just happened, it was borne out of necessity. Then President Olusegun Obasanjo denied Lagos its allocations because of his personal issues with then Lagos Governor, Bola Tinubu. This necessitated a need for Lagos to swim or sink. Lagos thrived. Governor Tinubu looked within and Lagos discovered it could do without the stipends from the Nigerian centre. Many have distorted the history of the Tinubu Lagos years but none can deny he made sure Lagos was running when many states would have declared bankruptcy under the same circumstance.

If Nigeria’s oil dries up today as it certainly would someday, Lagos would be just fine. It was fine before the oil came, it was fine after the oil came and it was fine when President Obasanjo held its share of its mostly oil dependent allocation. If you need a prophet to tell you Lagos is on a city-state path to development and self sufficiency, then that darkness earlier mentioned is even thicker for you than for the other average Nigerians.

We need to get this right into our skulls: the world will not end because some people die; civilizations that existed before certain realities will exist after those realities are gone. I don’t know if the average Nigerian has the ability to upgrade into a multidimensional thinker. For those that can, it is time for us to come to terms with this reality; Nigeria will survive without a part of its whole and Nigeria is a product of the sum of its part. All of us are responsible for the prosperity that we see in Nigeria and the poverty that abounds. The next time I hear someone say “Lagos was developed by the oil from the Niger Delta,” I’d be made to wonder how the darkness in some lives would see the light if their sole understanding of light is PHCN.

Follow on twitter @omojuwa

Egypt Unrest:Morsi Supporters Shot Dead In Cairo

At least 40 people have been killed in a shooting incident in Cairo, amid ongoing unrest over the removal of Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi.

The Muslim Brotherhood says its members were fired on outside a barracks where they believe he is being held, during a sit-in demanding his reinstatement.

However the army said a "terrorist group" had tried to storm the barracks.

Mr Morsi, an Islamist and Egypt's first freely elected leader, was ousted by the army last week after mass protests.

Scores of people have been killed since the unrest began last weekend.

Mr Morsi is believed to be detained at the Presidential Guard Club, in the eastern Nasr City district of the capital.

His supporters - many of them members of the Muslim Brotherhood movement he comes from - have been staging a sit-in there demanding his reinstatement.

After Monday morning's violence, the hardline Salafist Nour party - which had supported Mr Morsi's removal - said it was withdrawing from talks to choose an interim prime minister, describing the shooting incident as a "massacre".

'Weapons seized'

Both the Brotherhood and the Egyptian health ministry said at least 40 people had been killed, including an army officer. Some 300 people were reported to be wounded.

TV channels broadcast images of dead and injured people being taken to a makeshift hospital in the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, where Brotherhood supporters have been based.

But there were conflicting reports over how the violence unfolded.

The Muslim Brotherhood said the army had raided its sit-in at about 04:00 (02:00 GMT) as protesters were performing dawn prayers.

"The protesters were taken unawares and the troops used live ammunition, bird shot and tear gas," protester Alaa el-Hadidi told the BBC.

Another protester, Mahmud al-Shilli, told AFP news agency that troops had used tear gas but that a group of men in civilian clothing had then opened fire.

"The thugs came from the side. We were the target," he told AFP.

The Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood's political wing - which took nearly half the seats in last year's historic election -called on Egyptians to stage an "uprising" in response to the incident, against "those trying to steal their revolution with tanks".

It also urged "the international community and international groups and all the free people of the world to intervene to stop further massacres" and to stop Egypt becoming "a new Syria".

But in a statement read on state media, the army blamed the shooting on "an armed terrorist group" that had tried to storm the barracks.

It said an army officer was among those killed and that a number of others were wounded, some critically.

The statement said some 200 people had been arrested and were found to have weapons, ammunition and petrol bombs.

The army later said two soldier had been kidnapped by Morsi supporters.

It said that in two separate instances, men armed with guns and knives had forced the soldiers into vehicles.

Political setback

Mr Morsi was ousted on Wednesday by the military, which said it was responding to the demands of the people.

Protesters had been demanding that Mr Morsi step down, saying he had failed to tackle Egypt's economic problems and was becoming increasingly authoritarian.

He was replaced on Thursday by Adly Mansour -the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court. He has pledged to hold elections soon, but has as yet given no date for them.

The army has insisted it does not want to remain in power.

On Sunday, tens of thousands of both supporters and opponents of Mr Morsi rallied in many Egyptian cities.

The BBC's Jim Muir in Cairo says that despite the conflicting reports about Monday's violence, it is clear that blood has been shed, which will aggravate an already critical situation.

The withdrawal of the ultra-conservative Nour party from the political transition talks will also set back efforts to appoint a new prime minister, our correspondent adds.

Party spokesman Nadder Bakkar said it had "decided to withdraw immediately from all negotiations in response to the massacre".

Though the Islamist party had backed the army-led "roadmap" to new elections, it had blocked the appointment of two potential prime ministers because of concerns over the shape of a new constitution.

Rihanna wears unbuttoned sheer shirt-dress to fashion show in Paris

Riri wore this oversized shirt dress with no bra to the launch of Chanel’s Haute Couture Fall-Winter 2013-14 collection in Paris. Would you wear this? The only thing I want here is the bag! Lovely!

Islam: Toward A One-World Government

   In a series of articles about what he calls the “Power Elite” and the Muslim Brotherhood, Dr. Dennis Cuddy makes a strong argument in favor of the idea that Islam is being used across the globe to bring about certain ends throughout society. If that is true – and I would concur – then we need only ask two questions:

1 Who is using Islam?

2. For what purpose is Islam being used?

If we consider Islam and how it has literally been given free rein to move across the globe creating terror and change wherever it goes, the reality becomes clear. Islam is allowed to grow and move at will. Leaders of nations (including the United States) appear unable to stop it, ignoring the obvious and even making excuses for Islam.

Leaders and other elected officials seem confused and inept. They seem to think that by giving into Islam’s demands, Islam itself will quiet down and take its position within civilized society. This has never been the case, yet this attitude prevails among them.

This approach has obviously not worked. The more our leaders give into Islam, the more demands adherents of Islam make. We are left to conclude that either these leaders are too vapid to realize this or they have intentionally taken such a position toward Islam. In doing so, they have allowed Islam to prosper.

Cuddy argues that Islam is being used today (as it was during Hitler’s day), by what he calls the Power Elite. This group, variously referred to as the Power Elite, the Global Elite, the Bilderbergers, the Illuminati, as well as many other designations, is using Islam for one purpose only. It is to create continual global destabilization in order to bring about a one-world order.

If we look no further than North Africa and what is happening in the Middle East right now, we see this truth borne out. Egypt’s Mubarak was taken out by force.

Originally, the Muslim Brotherhood said they would remain apart from the elections there. They reneged and even offered their own candidate –Morsi. We know who “won” the election and Morsi was installed as president. However, he is nothing more than a Muslim Brotherhood puppet, allowed to be in power by the elite. If he gets too big for his britches, he can and will be replaced…with another Muslim Brotherhood puppet.

The same occurred with Gaddafi of Libya. He was ousted and replaced with individuals who are loyal either to Al-Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood (ultimately, to Islam). Turmoil has occurred in that entire region of North Africa and will continue.

Now sights are set on Syria with the intended ousting of Assad. Who do you think he’ll be replaced with when all is said and done? We know that Obama has played his part as well, taking orders from the Global Elite and because of his Muslim background, he can relate to Muslims quite easily.

In the end, that entire region (surrounding Israel) of the world will be controlled by Islam, which is in turn, controlled by the Global Elite. Islam is made up of the best soldiers because they are not afraid to die. They actually look forward to it believing that in death, they will receive their promised reward from Allah. Who could ask for better soldiers?

The Global Elite is using Islam to create new regimes. Again, this is exactly what Hitler attempted to achieve. We know that he was using the Grand Mufti in Jerusalem to help him in his plot to overthrow and even oust Jews from Israel. His sights were set on the Temple Mount as are the Global Elite’s.

By the way, in spite of the fact that Islam is literally doing all the grunt work (and being rewarded by the Global Elite with Islamic leaders placed in power), at some point in time, the Global Elite will step in and remove all the Islamic leaders, replacing them with their own. It is far easier to remove and replace leaders from the same type of regime (Islamic) who are already loyal to the Global Elite, than to go in and replace one leader at a time. This is, in fact, what they are doing now in preparation for the future one-world government. It is not a coincidence that Islam itself is working toward a global caliphate (world rule) where Sharia law will be the rule of law.

Are world leaders really that oblivious that they are unable to see what Islam is doing? No, they are merely pretending to be so, in order that the goals of the Global Elite will be brought to fruition. Islam is a very much needed and useful scourge on global society.

The goal of the Global Elite is to keep the world in a constant state of upheaval as they continue to sweep us toward globalization. The average person’s level of fear and uncertainty will continue to grow. Because of this, they will look increasingly to government for answers. The government will oblige with the proviso that in exchange, certain rights must be given up. Too many people will give them up gladly in exchange for the promise of security, security that will never come.

The more we know about Islam, the less we will be taken in by it          Islam: Toward a One-World GovernmentWestern Journalism

Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/islam-moving-the-world-toward-a-one-world-government/

Obama Unveils Africa’s New $7 Billion Power

US president Barack Obama at the weekend unveiled a $7 billion new US-led plan to increase access to electricity in Africa.

Obama swore to assist Africa in bringing “light where there is currently darkness.”

Obama made these remarks after visiting Robben Island, where Mandela, who is currently in hospital, spent almost two decades of his 27-year stay in jail.

Electricity generation in Africa is acutely inadequate and unreliable. According to Eco Power Africa, Nigeria for example, a vast nation of 150 million people, has a generating capacity of 4,000 MW.

“By comparison, New York City alone has a generating capacity of 13,000 MW. The shortfall encompasses both the generation and transmission infrastructure,” Eco Power Africa said in its website.

“This shortfall is persistent and structural, and the amount of capital required to ameliorate it is tremendous. Therefore, this problem will not be resolved anytime soon with the usual approach to generation.”

The lack of power in Africa is said to be the biggest obstruction to economic development in sub-Saharan Africa.

Tackling this difficulty will lead to large-scale wealth creation and release the region’s vast capacity.

Obama’s electricity plan, known as “Power Africa,” represents the kind of cross-Africa projects Obama is bent on achieving.

The US will invest $7 billion in the power plan, which will pay more attention to advancing more access to power in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania.

It is understood that big firms including General Electric and Symbion Power will put in an additional
$9 billion

Source: VENTURES AFRICA

Obama calls on African leaders to legalize homosexuality...

Obama calls on African leaders to legalize homosexuality...

THE GAMBIAN PRESIDENT(YAHYA JAMMEH), Has This To Say About it: "HOMOSEXUALITY' HOMOSEXUALITY Is ANTI-HUMANITY. I Have Never Seen Homosexual CHICKEN, or TURKEY. If You Are Convicted Of Homosexuality in this country, there will be no mercy for offenders. We will put you in the female wing of the prison.”

AND TO FOREIGN OYIBO COUNTRIES,HE ALSO HAD THIS TO SAY: "If you are to give us Aid for Men and Men or for Women and Women to Marry, Leave it. We Don't need your Aid because as far as I am the President of the Gambia, you will never see that happen in this country." Why is Obama pressing it farther with African countries on legalizing?