Posts Tagged ‘Washington’
Written by admin on 06 February 2012
Washington, Feb 6 (IANS) Implementation of the India-US civil nuclear deal, sanctions against Iran and the Af-Pak situation are among the host of bilateral and regional issues expected to figure in talks between Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai with US officials.
A meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also on the cards during Mathai’s first bilateral visit to the United States indicating the importance being attached to India-US relationship by the Obama administration.
Mathai, who arrived here Sunday, may also meet with Obama’s National Security Advisor Tom Donilon when he goes to the White House for a meeting with Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs Michael Froman.
For official level talks Tuesday, he is scheduled to meet Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs Wendy Sherman, and assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia Robert Blake.
Last week, state department spokesman Mark Toner said the US officials would be discussing with Mathai all of the issues that fall under their strong bilateral relationship, as well as many global issues.
Among the issues top on the list, officials said are the sanctions against Iran, Af-Pak situation, implementation of the India-US civilian nuclear deal and the upcoming India-US Strategic Dialogue in Washington later this year.
He is scheduled to speak on “Building on Convergence: Deepening the India-US Strategic Partnership” at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Monday.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)
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Written by admin on 06 February 2012
Washington, Feb 6 (IANS) An “alarming” 4,500-plus children subjected to abuse in the US ended up in hospitals and 300 of them died of injuries in a single year, a study reveals.
Researchers from the Yale School of Medicine, led by John M. Leventhal, professor of paediatrics, used the 2006 Kids’ Inpatient Database (KID) to estimate the incidence of hospitalizations due to serious physical abuse among children younger than 18 years.
“These numbers are higher than the rate of sudden infant death syndrome (about 50 per 100,000 births), which is alarming,” said Leventhal.
Several measures have been used to track the national occurrence of child abuse, including data from Child Protective Services. But until now none quantified the severity of the abuse or whether the child was hospitalized as a result, reported the journal Paediatrics.
KID was prepared by the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, part of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a university statement said.
They found 4,569 children were hospitalized in the US in 2006 due to serious abuse; out of which 300 children died. Children in their first year of life were at highest risk of being hospitalized, making up 58.2 per 100,000 children in this age group.
Serious abuse was defined as any child who was admitted to the hospital with an injury that was coded as abuse. Such children included a three-month-old with multiple bruises due to abuse and a three-month-old with life-threatening abusive head trauma.
The definition did not include children admitted with suspicious injuries who were eventually diagnosed as having non-abusive injuries.
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Written by admin on 06 February 2012
Washington, Feb 6 (IANS) Newly-divorced middle-aged women are more vulnerable to contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, a study reveals.
It is because they tend to let their guard down with new sexual partners and avoid using protection since they are unafraid of getting pregnant, said study author Christopher Coleman, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.
Additionally, as ageing occurs, physiological changes due to menopause such as the thinning of vaginal walls make it more susceptible for a woman to contract a virus.
Medications that would be used to treat an STD or HIV become hard for a woman to tolerate because an ageing body metabolizes medications differently, a university statement said.
“There is a knowledge gap with women knowing what the physiological changes associated with menopause are,” said Coleman.
“There is very little research on this subject and society and the government does not talk about it, but these high risk sexual behaviours need to be addressed because the rate of HIV-positive in middle-aged women is increasing,” Coleman concluded.
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Written by admin on 06 February 2012
Washington, Feb 6 (IANS) A Mysore-born Indian American public affairs specialist has been charged with revitalising the Muslim Public Service Network that grooms young American Muslims for public service and to take on civic leadership positions.
“I believe that MPSN needs to form strong alliances with organizations in the US, while working to stabilise its flagship Summer Fellowship programme,” said Sabith Khan, the new executive director about his task of revitalising the organisation founded in 1994.
“I believe we need to also engage our stake-holders and community in a creative way, so they come together and give back and re-learn the meaning of community development,” Khan, who “lived in Bangalore for most of my life” before coming to the US told IANS.
Over the last 18 years, a few fellows of the programme have gone on to make a name in public service. The most prominent is Rashad Hussain, son of a mining engineer from Bihar, who was named by President Barack Obama as US Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
“The American Muslim community is among the richest, best educated communities there is, and has been consistently giving back to the country,” Khan said. “But one area where it lacks substantial contribution is in the area of Public policy.”
“With my understanding of public policy and civic engagement, I believe I can make a deep impact on the organization and help it move forward; and grow in size and also partnerships/ alliances,” said Khan, who has a Masters in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.
“MPSN is at a stage where they needed someone to stabilise the program and also grow its support base, while maintaining its high quality programming. I believe I will be able to do that, going forward,” he added.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)
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Written by admin on 06 February 2012
Washington, Feb 6 (IANS/RIA Novosti) US President Barack Obama has said he saw no basis for rumours that Iran may be planning an attack on the US.
“We don’t see any evidence that they (Iran) have those intentions or capabilities right now,” he said in an interview with NBC Sunday night.
Tensions over Iran’s nuclear activities have reached boiling point since the Islamic Republic announced earlier this month that it had launched a nuclear enrichment programme at a well-protected underground facility near the city of Qom.
A number of experts do not rule out that the diplomatic spat with Iran and unilateral US and EU sanctions may develop into a full-scale military conflict. The anti-Iranian coalition may include Georgia, Turkey, Israel and Persian Gulf monarchies.
In his Sunday’s interview Obama said he opposed military operations in the Persian Gulf region.
“Obviously, any kind of additional military activity inside the Gulf is disruptive and has a big effect on us, it can have a big effect on oil prices,” he said. “We’ve still got troops in Afghanistan, which borders Iran. And so our preferred solution here is diplomatic, we’re going to keep on pushing on that front.”
Obama also discounted US media reports that Israel, which views Iran’s uranium enrichment activity as a major threat to its security, may attack Iran in four months.
A Washington Post journalist Friday attributed the statement to US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who refused to officially comment on the statement.
“I don’t think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do,” the US president said, adding, however, that “we’re not going to take any option off the table”.
–IANS/RIA Novosti
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Written by admin on 06 February 2012
Washington, Feb 6 (IANS) Three people, including two boys, were killed Sunday in an explosion at a home in the north-western US state of Washington.
The explosion happened at around 12.30 p.m. shortly after a case worker, who dropped the boys off for a supervised visitation, was forced out of the house in Graham, a city around 70 km south of Seattle, said Xinhua.
According to The Seattle Times, police said they believe Josh Powell, the husband of a Utah woman who has been missing since 2009, as well as their two young boys, Charlie, 7, and Braden, 5, were killed in the explosion.
The explosion is being investigated as an intentional act, said the police.
Last week, a judge ordered that Powell’s sons remain in the custody of his missing wife’s parents. The boys were removed from his custody last September after Josh Powell’s father, Steve Powell, was arrested and charged for possessing child pornography.
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