[SOC] Funny planet

[f5pbl]

Funny planet --par Pierre-Yves Roger--
[03/01/2003 15:05]

A crocodile in jail

SYDNEY (AP) - The jail is not made only for delinquents: a crocodile
has made this bitter experience in Australia. It has passed a day in
jail because it had dared to stroll near a clinic of Derby, a city
situated in the west of the country.

Thursday morning the reptile, 1,50m long, has ventured out the
mangrove situated near the city, has announced the police of Derby.
The crocodile, that has walked 500 meters, has been found hidden under
bushes near a clinic.

A cell of the police station has been requisitioned to momentarily rid
of the cumbersome reptile. But that the crocodile, that obviously
only looked to escape the torrid heat (44 C/111 F on Thursday), has
then been released in the mangrove again.

AP

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A weight record in Houston

HOUSTON (AP) - In Houston, a lot of people have a large, large problem
of weight. For the third consecutive year, the magazine �Men's
Fitness� has designated this American city as the fattest of the
country. The humid and hot climate of the region, the quality of the
air qualified as �dreadful�, the lack of outside activity and the love
of residents for �pigswills� would be notably responsible for this
not very enviable title.

Houston, the fourth city of United States, arrives in head of a list
of 25 cities, before Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphie and St Louis.

Last year, the municipality had nevertheless launched a campaign to
encourage residents to have a healthier life, and had even awarded,
for the first time, a title of czar of fitness. It had been attributed
to an ancient Mister Universe, Lee Labrada.

But this last doubts of the credibility of the "chart" of the
magazine. According to him, an inquiry aiming to determine the number
of persons in overheight or obese, recently made by the control and
prevention Center of sicknesses among 185.000 Americans in 55 cities,
shows that Houston is not listed in the first ten cities counting the
most obese.

AP

On the Net:  

http://mensfitness.com/mens.html

http://www.getleanhouston.c

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Moth-eaten bears ...

NATIONAL OCALA FOREST, Florida (AP) - More than half of the black
bears living in a northern forest of Florida, in the region of Lynne,
suffer a type of scabies that make entirely fall their hairs. It is
the only place of the country where biologists assert to have seen so
much bear to suffer this sickness. �They look like large naked rats�,
has asserted Mark Cunningham, a veterinarian of the Commission of
conservation of the fauna and the flora of Florida.
�I have shown photographs to people that have not even understood that
it was featuring bears�.

According to Mark Cunningham, the scabies is transmitted by tiny mites
that attack the skin of the bears. Most of these animals can have
mites, but the bears of the region of Lynne seem to carry some more
than the normal.

Thus, more of 15 bears -about 60% of these that are found in this
region - are affected in varying degrees by this sickness.
Approximately 90% of females are affected, and it seems that the
sickness transmits to their youngs.

Local authorities do not make apparently anything to ease these bears,
but they do not seem to have others health problems that the loss of
their hair , according to Mark Cunningham.

AP

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Singapore chooses the hard way to incite students to sexual abstinence

SINGAPORE (AP) - students of Singapore are going to have to assist a
spectacle unusual enough. As part of a campaign aimed at preserving
them from occasional sexual reports, the government has decided to
show them images of bodies' parts deformed by  sexually transmittable
sicknesses.

Photography in color of persons suffering gonorrhea, chlamydia and
syphilis are thus presented in a booklet that will be distributed to
schoolboys fifteen years old starting January, has announced Leona Lo,
a spokesperson of the Governmental Bureau for Health.

One teachs to students that the abstinence is the best protection
against sexually transmittable sicknesses, but the utilization of
condoms is equally encouraged, has she nevertheless added.

AP

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Estonians invited to make more children 

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) -  Anxious to see the population of his country
to decrease, the Estonian president has urged his 1,4 million fellow
citizens to make more children.

�We should not forget that in some decades only, Estonians that will
see the New Year will be 20% less than today�, had declared the
president Arnold Ruutel, in a speech broadcasted Wednesday on the
public television network.

According to statistics, the number of births has decreased of
approximately 50% in twenty years, between the beginning of years 1980
and 2001, according to the ministry.

�Women postpone the decision to have children to be able to make
studies and to take care of their career�, has declared, in manner of
explanation, Pirat Laur, member of the Bureau of the World
Organization for Health in Estonia.

AP

==

And now, the SOC news of the day :


Finns are asked to renounce (temporarily) to the sauna
[2003-01-03 14:54]

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finns have been asked to restrain one of their
favorite activities - the sauna - for reason of meteorological conditions.

The wave of cold knocking the country, that would be the hardest since
forty years, has made increase electricity invoices and the government
wants to make energy savings.

"The normal temperature for a sauna is between 70 and 80�c [158 to 176
F]. To go up to 100�c [212 F], for example, is 30% more expensive",
one can read in a communique published on Thursday evening.

Moreover, "it is possible to gather numerous in an ordinary sauna" and
"it is not mandatory to stay too much time under the shower",
continues the text.

The dry cold has made decline the level of water reserves of all
Nordic countries, that very largely depend on hydroelectric energy.

In some parts of Finland, especially in the north and the east,
temperatures have reached -40�C/F. The capital, Helsinki, is also
under winter rigor, with some unusual -20�c [-04 F].

=o=o=o=o=o=

A foot found in a Swedish laundry
[2003-01-03 14:13]

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The employees of a Swedish laundry has had the
surprise to find a foot in the linen deposited by a hospital, reports
the Swedish Friday press.

The sectioned member, whose nails were with make-up, has been found on
10 December in a laundry of Eskilstuna, westward Stockholm, that take
care of the linen of several hospitals, reports the newspaper
Eskilstuna-Kuriren on its internet site.

Before the possible opening of an inquiry, the police waits a medical
report on the foot and on the manner by which it has been separated
from the leg, has declared an officer of the local police to the newspaper.


And, last but not least, once agn my Brit Friends has done it !


A feminine sexual turmoil invented by medical industry ?
[2003-01-03 13:06]

LONDON (Reuters) - Pharmaceutical enterprises have denied rumors
stating that they had invented a new sexual feminine illness in view
to create a market for the medicine curing this turmoil and to repeat
the Viagra success.

According to the British Medical Newspaper, researchers linke to
pharmaceutical industry had invented, during conferences financed by
pharmaceutical firms and held in the last six years, a new trouble of
the woman sexuality, known under the name of "female sexual
dysfunction". This for the purpose to incite using medicines similar
to the one that has met a planetary success by curing the male impotence.

It results a bad curing of the woman sexuality diseases and in an
exaggeration of the number of concerned women.

According to the author of the article, Ray Moynihan, from the
Australian Financial Review, to assert that 43% women between 18 and
59 years suffer sexual troubles is an error and potentially harmful.

Manufacturers of medicines insure that they only sought a curing for
millions of women that have similar sexual difficulties to what is the
absence of erection at the man, and that is henceforth cured with the
well-known Viagra manufactured by Pfizer.

"That only provides a solution for physicians if the situation
demanded it", has declared the Dr Richard Tiner, medical director of
the Association of British pharmaceutical industry.

A spokesperson of Pfizer has equally protested against these
accusations, underlining that the Viagra and its future competitors
manufactured by Eli Lilly/ICOS and Bayer/GlaxoSmithKline were still
waiting the authorization to be administered to women.

"We work from medical needs that have not found reply. That were
researchers that worked on that since well long, well before they have
come to ask us to support them", has she specified.
"I think that this article is an insult to all women that tell us that
they are suffering".

OVER

"dit-dit".

Claude