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[negar92]

Pregnancy the 'biggest killer' for teenage girls

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  28 June 2012
  Pregnancy is the biggest killer of teenage girls worldwide. A new report by Save the Children says that one million teenage girls die or suffer serious injury, infection or disease due to having a baby. The charity says the lack of access to contraception is at the root of the problem.
  Reporter:
  Emily Buchanan
  
  
  
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  In many countries it's normal for girls to be married off young. They often quickly become pregnant but their bodies are not developed enough to give birth. In one clinic in a poor region of northern Liberia, a third of all babies are born to girls between 15 and 19. Some are as young as 13.
  
  A Save the Children project manager there, George Kijana, says these young mothers are prone to a lot of medical complications. [For example] a fistula causes a lot of pain and incontinence, and girls are frequently then ostracised from their families. Babies too are more at risk, far more likely to die if their mother's under 18.
  
  For years contraceptive programmes have struggled for funding and support as the religious right in the US has pressed Washington to oppose them. But world leaders will be congregating in London next month for a family planning summit hosted by the British government and the Gates Foundation. They will be urging action to make contraception not just more available to girls, but to empower them to use it by helping their families understand the health benefits of later pregnancies.
  
  Charities point out that there could be huge cost benefits - with $1 spent on family planning saving at least $4 on treating the complications fromunintended pregnancies.

[negar92]

Body confidence

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  26 June 2012
  A government guide to help parents teach their children how to be confident about their bodies is being launched. The pack shows how digitally enhanced images of celebrities affect youngsters' self-esteem, and it offers advice on how to talk to children about the subject.
  Reporter:
  Linda Hardy
  
  
  
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  This is what children and teenagers are increasingly faced with. An array of seemingly picture perfect faces and bodies tanned, toned andtransformed from what they once were and it's that transformation that the new parent pack hopes to explain – showing parents and their children how images are altered in the media, the actress Keira Knightley before and after the effects of airbrushing. 20 year old Rachel Johnson is a recovering anorexic, and says getting parents involved is key.
  
  "I think it is education for parents, it's actually being able to talk to parents, actually being able to ask those questions 'what do I do?'. And it's not there to scare parents it's there just to raise the profile a little bit more just to get the children to talk about body image."
  
  Aimed at parents of six to eleven year olds it gives them tips on how to talk to their children about their own bodies and is available online. It follows the success of a teaching pack launched for primary schools last year which also revealed that images aren't always what they seem.

[negar92]

New app for children who can't speak

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  5 July 2012
  New technology promises to give thousands of children who cannot speak a voice. An app called Proloquo2Go allows 6-year-old Ruby Dunn to tap on symbols on a tablet computer - and then have a sentence read out in a child's voice. The software, which features the voices of two British children, is among a number of innovations now helping children with special needs.
  Reporter:
  Rory Cellan-Jones
  
  
  
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  Voice of tablet computer:
  "Mary, Mary, quite contrary."
  
  Six-year-old Ruby Dunn has autism and can't speak. But now a software application on an mp3 player and on a tablet computer is giving her a voice.
  
  Voice of tablet computer:
  "What grows in the garden?"
  "The flowers. The flowers grow in the garden."
  
  Pauline Hoygreen works with her to make sure she is integrated in to school life. In one-on-one sessions they communicate through the app:
  
  Pauline Hoygreen, teacher:
  "It's giving her her own voice and it's giving her a child's voice for her to be able to communicate to a teacher, her one-to-ones, the children in the class and the children around the rest of the school."
  
  Ruby was born 14 weeks premature and very tiny, so life has been a bit of a struggle.
  
  Voice of tablet computer:
  "Can I have lasagne, broccoli, carrots?"
  
  At lunchtime the app allows her to order her meal.
  
  Voice of tablet computer:
  "I want the wheels on the bus please."
  
  And in the classroom, Ruby uses it and other technology to play a full part in lessons.
  
  It's worth saying there are now plenty of apps, some of them free, available on all sorts of devices which are designed to help children with disabilities. The one we've been looking at is pretty expensive – it costs around £130 – but Ruby's family say it's made a huge difference to her life.
  
  Ruby's father:
  "There's a lot of frustration involved with autism and quite often Ruby's trying to pull you to show you something, you're not quite sure what it is she's looking at or what she's looking for or what she's asking for. But now she's got this tool, this brilliant tool, that's able to give her this voice, it's taken a lot of frustration out. We find it's calmed her down a lot."
  
  With school over it's time to head home with the technology which has given Ruby and thousands like her a better connection to their world.

[negar92]

Calorie counting menus

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  6 July 2012
  Restaurants in Ireland are to be given six months to voluntarily implement calorie menu labelling which will allow diners to see exactly how healthy their food choices are. The country's health minister has said if restaurants don't comply with the voluntary scheme, he may bring forward legislation on the matter.
  Reporter:
  Ruth McDonald
  
  
  
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  Ireland has a proud tradition of producing good quality food, which is enjoyed at home and abroad. But like many developed countries, it's also battling obesity - nearly forty per cent of adults here are overweight.
  
  On Wednesday the country's health minister backed a report calling for calorie labelling, which would mean that Irish restaurants, like this one, and fast food outlets would have to show exactly how many calories are in the dishes that they serve.
  
  The health minister said the country's food businesses have six months to introduce calorie menu labelling, or else face the possible introduction of acompulsory scheme.
  Some fast food chains here already label their menus, allowing customers to make healthier choices if they wish. But the country's restaurant association has claimed it will cost each outlet around seven thousand dollars to implement calorie labelling.
  
  The move is supported, however, by the findings of the report, which show that most people here support calorie labelling in food outlets. This is a country with a track record of acting on public health - Ireland was one of the first places in the world to implement a blanket smoking ban in public places, for example.

[negar92]

Costa Concordia captain speaks out

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  9 July 2012
  The Italian captain of the Costa Concordia – the cruise ship that hit rocks and sank - has released a letter defending his actions. In this first detailed public explanation since the catastrophe, Captain Francesco Schettino says he took a series of steps that averted an even greater disaster.
  Reporter:
  Alan Johnston
  
  
  
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  As the man in command of the Costa Concordia on the night she sank, Captain Schettino became a hate figure in the Italian media. Blame has been heaped on him for sailing his vessel recklessly close to a reef off the island of Giglo. But now, for the first time, he's tried to explain his actions publicly.
  
  In a letter released by his lawyers, the captain seems to suggest that he should have been told by one of his crew that he was too close to the shore. But he says that he realised that he was too near shallow water when he saw breaking waves off to his left. He then immediately swung the vessel away to the right. That meant, he says, that a very serious head-on collision with the reef was avoided.
  
  Instead there was a less damaging, glancing blow that enabled the ship to limp on rather than sink immediately with huge loss of life. Captain Schettino even suggests that what he calls "a divine hand" might have been guiding him as he made the crucial decision to turn. He says that after the collision he put into operation an emergency plan that involved shutting watertight doors and sailing his stricken ship into shallower water. This made it possible, he says, to abandon the vessel more safely. And again, he argues, this action saved lives.

[negar92]

A dog's life

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Eight million years ago, a shift in the climate caused more barren, open landscapes to spread across the globe. And without the cover of trees, large animals grouped together for protection.

This, the scientists say, was when wild dogs started to work together, teaming up to drive big prey out of the herd. The Colombian team examined the skulls of more than 300 dog species, building a timeline that revealed how their jaws and teeth hadevolved.

This revealed that the wolves from which our domestic dogsdescend started to change when they began to hunt in packs. From then on, the dogs with the biggest teeth and most powerful jaws were most likely to succeed in overpowering their prey, so they passed their 'hypercarnivorous' genes on to the next generation.

The researchers say that this is what's given our pet dogs such good evolutionary reasons to really enjoy chewing on bones.

[negar92]

Baby panda loses life

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The sorrow in Japan at the death of the baby panda was as heartfelt as the euphoria at its long-awaited birth. NHK television broke into its programming to announce the news. The director of Ueno zoo in Tokyo wiped away tears as he explained that the male cub hadinhaled milk while breastfeeding, leading to pneumonia. The baby was found motionless on his mother's chest: efforts to revivehim failed.

He was conceived naturally by two giant pandas sent from China last year just before the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The animals provided some welcome lighter news, and their baby's every wriggle was chronicled avidly in the Japanese media. China is famed for its panda diplomacy: last week Beijing expressed hope that the panda's birth would improve its testy relations with Japan.

On Wednesday the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said Chinalamented the loss of the cub and believed the Japanese people would be grieving too. But panda births in captivity are notoriouslyfraught. Some conservationists say these endangered animals are just too rare to be traded as diplomatic trophies - and that moving them between countries is a further risk to their health.