Japan has one of the world's longest average life spans, a factor often attributed to a diet rich in fish and rice.

Elderly people are expected to make up 40.5 percent of Japan’s population by 2055 if current trends continue the government.
At that rate, there will only be 1.3 workers paying taxes to support each person over age 65, according to an annual Cabinet Office report on Japan’s aging society, said AP.
The number of Japanese age 65 or older stood at 26.6 million--a record 20.8 percent of the country’s 127.77 million people--as of Oct. 1, 2006, the government said earlier this year.
Japan has one of the world’s longest average life spans, a factor often attributed to a diet rich in fish and rice.
In 2003, Japanese women set a new record for life expectancy at 85.3 years, while men live an average of 78.3 years.
The report projects those average life spans to lengthen to 90.34 years for women and 83.67 years for men by 2055.
Japan’s increasingly aging population and falling birth rate have stirred concerns about a potential labor shortage, tax shortfalls and pension problems, with fewer taxpayers supporting an aging population.

Russia’s HIV infection rate continues to rise--most notably in the heterosexual and non-drug-using populations--despite steady increases in funds to fight the disease. Experts and medical researchers say dramatic changes in sexual attitudes and behavior are essential if the trend is to be reversed.
“Funds allocated for prevention are not enough and prevention programs implemented in Russia are very limited in terms of coverage, sustainability and effectiveness. The disease is spreading further into the heterosexual population [beyond] drug users, and especially from men to women. And this trend will continue,“ Roman Dudnik, regional adviser at AIDS Foundation East-West (AFEW), told IPS.
Women comprised 40 percent of the 39,589 news cases of HIV registered in Russia last year. In the first four months of 2007, 15,122 cases were registered, which is seven percent more than in the same period in 2006. Experts say AIDS funds are not reaching the destinations where they are most needed. The human immunodeficiency virus seemingly spreads as the funds increase.
Although surprisingly there was a sharp decline in HIV infections through the use of non-sterile equipment by injecting drug users between 2001 and 2005, there is a correspondingly steep increase in the proportions of infections due to unprotected sex, Neill McKee, a communications expert with the Bloomberg School of Public Health at John Hopkins University in the US said.
He noted that 40 percent of newly reported infections in 2005 were among women, and that only a minority of those women had contracted the virus through infected syringes.
“Russia is a very large territory and is probably experiencing many mini-epidemics rather than one epidemic,“ he said.
According to experts, testing and concurrent counseling are only the first step to prevention. To reduce disease transmission requires changes in individual behavior, social norms, laws, policies, and practices that promote risk.
For those who use injected drugs, the primary prevention measures are increased access to clean syringes, effective treatment for addiction, and antiretroviral therapy for those already infected. None of these are being adequately provided in Russia, agree health experts.
Russia’s health and development ministry said overall funding for fighting AIDS is rising but that just 200 million Roubles (7.75 million dollars) would be spent on prevention in 2007 out of a total health budget of 5.3 billion Roubles (205.4 million dollars). This would hardly make a dent in the problem, experts believe.

China is planning to dispatch more Chinese language teachers to overseas to meet the surging demand for Mandarin, an official with the Office of Chinese Language Council International said.
“We are planning to offer three to five teachers or volunteers to each Confucius Institutions in the coming years,“ Xu Lin, director of the office, said.
China has so far set up 155 Confucius Institutes, schools or classrooms in 53 countries and regions worldwide, reported Xinhua.
Xu said each year, there are 10,000 positions of teaching Chinese as a foreign language in the world by conservative estimate, but only 2,000 teachers are available from China.
Last year, China sent 1,004 Chinese teachers to 80 countries and 1,050 volunteers to 34 countries.
In addition to recruiting more Chinese teachers, the office also plans to launch Confucius Institute online and broadcast services to make it more accessible for people interested in learning Chinese, Xu said.
According to the Ministry of Education, about 30 million foreigners are learning Chinese, and the figure will hit 100 million by 2010. In China alone, the number of foreigners studying Mandarin has grown from 36,000 ten years ago to 110,000 this year.
The Confucius Institute, headquartered in Beijing, is a non-profit organization aimed at promoting the Chinese language and culture. By 2010, 500 Confucius Institutes and classrooms are expected to be set up around the world.
Confucius, born in 551 B.C., was a great Chinese thinker, philosopher, statesman and educator. He was also the founder of Confucianism.

Syria’s population has grown to more than 19 million residents although the annual birth rate has slipped to 2.5 percent, the government daily Tishrin reported.
“The Syrian population has crossed the 19 million mark in 2007, from 17.9 million residents in 2004,“ it said, citing figures from
the Arab state’s central statistics bureau.
The figure was only 4.5 million in 1960 and 13.8 million in 1994. “This growth rate represents the greatest challenge for development plans,“ it said, wrote AFP.
The birth rate, however, was as high as 3.3 percent between 1981 and 1994, easing to 2.7 percent between 1995 and 2000, before
falling to the current rate of 2.5 percent.
Syria forecasts an economic growth rate of 5.6 percent for this year, with a target of seven percent by the end of a 2006-2010
five-year development plan. Per capita income has risen to 1,056 dollar a year, from 756 dollars in 2000.

Cyclone Gonu battered Bandar Abbas, in IranÕs Hormozgan province, late Wednesday.

A Busy street in New York

New York City, where tolls are $6 and putting your car in a parking garage for just an hour can cost $20, is already an expensive place to drive.
Now the mayor wants to make it so costly that some people will take mass transit instead.
New York would become the first US city to adopt a large-scale “congestion pricing“ plan, reducing traffic and pollution by charging cars $8 and trucks $21 to enter the busiest parts of Manhattan. The proposal is similar to a system that London has used since 2003, and officials there say it has significantly reduced congestion, reported AP.
The idea got a boost from US Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who announced that New York is one of nine semifinalists to receive federal funds to fight traffic.
It is part of an ambitious series of environmental measures that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been announcing in recent months. The city is converting all taxis to hybrid vehicles, and the Republican billionaire businessman is proposing to replace conventional light bulbs with more efficient ones, and cut New York’s carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030.
Under the traffic plan, motorists would be charged extra to drive into Manhattan below 86th Street. That would include the Broadway theater district, most of Central Park, the midtown shopping area, Madison Square Garden, Times Square, the Empire State Building, Greenwich Village, Little Italy, Chinatown, Wall Street and ground zero.
Backers say the plan would get cut traffic jams and pollution by discouraging driving, and would also generate nearly $400 million in just its first year--money that could go toward buses, subways and other mass transit.
The mayor’s office projects that traffic in the restricted zone would decrease 6.3 percent.
Environmentalists have embraced the plan, but it would need approval from state Legislature, and many lawmakers from the city’s outer communities are against it.
“This is a tax on middle-class people,“ said state Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Democrat from suburban Westchester County.
But the plan appears to be gaining momentum among influential state leaders. And Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer said he will urge lawmakers to support the plan so that New York will qualify for the money offered by Washington.
The other cities competing for a total of $1.1 billion in federal funds are Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Miami, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. Peters said up to five cities will split the money, and the winners will be announced by mid-August.

As a drug pusher and user, Mohamad Yusof Othman would source for supplies, buy in bulk, appoint dealers to peddle his wares and let the profits rolling in feed his habit.
Ten years later he has honed those business strategies to greater success. Only, now he is off drugs and his trading talents are being used to run a snack food business where tidy profits are helping feed him and his family.
Yusof, or his thriving stall at the Kuala Lumpur Downtown Bazaar, are not unique--some 80 of the 400 traders at the night market are recovering drug addicts who sell household items, traditional medicine, tailoring services, foot massage service, clothes, snacks and toys.
The KL Downtown, as it is popularly known, is a venture of Pengasih, or “Care Giver,“ a Malaysian association of former drug addicts that aims to integrate its members back into society, to help them earn an honest living and to be independent, functional individuals, reported AP.
“This market is a positive influence,“ the youthful-looking 47-year-old Yusof says. “When you are busy working on strategies to grow your business, your mind is full and you have a purpose...there’s no time to think of drugs and no need to turn to it.“
Malaysia currently has about 23,000 drug addicts, and reforming some 80 may sound like a drop in the ocean.
Still, it provides a clever and unique answer to the problem that may offer lessons and inspiration to other activists fighting addiction worldwide.
“It is a good start for such a small group,“ said Shan Kathirvelu of the local human rights group Suaram, adding that the project needs institutional backing from the government.
“It’s time for the big effort, because the numbers are very big and the concerns are serious and recovering addicts need urgent care.“
The recovering addicts at the Downtown Bazaar do not get any government aid to start their business--they have to raise their own funds. The land occupied by the Downtown Bazaar belongs to the city municipality, which has loaned it to Pengasih.
All the recovering drug addicts there are Pengasih members. Membership rules are strict: Addicts must be drug free and crime free for at least two years before they are allowed into the association and are mentored by senior members after that.
The project’s manager, Mohamad Rustam Roshandin, 24, who was addicted to drugs at the age of 11 and cleaned up at 20 with Pengasih’s help, said he mooted the bazaar idea to the group’s directors to encourage entrepreneurship--and also to help himself.
His dream is to create a safe space not just for former addicts to ease into a normal life, but also to reach vulnerable teenagers.

Scottish researchers say the country’s gloomy winters may be contribute to a high rate of heart disease.
Dundee University scientists found that volunteers who took a dose of vitamin D during the winter had better blood vessel function, The Glasgow Herald said.
Vitamin D is naturally produced by skin in response to sunlight.
Researcher Allan Struthers of the university’s medical school told the British Cardiovascular Society vitamin D deficiency during the winter may cause serious health problems, said Upi.com.
“The study suggests, really for the first time ever, that vitamin D has a beneficial effect on the blood vessel,“ he said.