London 2012: Olympic flame to be lit in Greece

BBC News

 

The flame is lit from the rays of the sun, representing 'purity'

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London 2012 torch relay

• What is the Olympic torch relay?
• Check the full street-by-street route
• Bearers charged to own 2012 torch
• Torchbearers' inspiring tales

The Olympic flame will be lit in a ceremony in Olympia, Greece, on Thursday ahead of the start of the torch relay and the London 2012 Games.

The flame is kindled by a 'high priestess' who captures the morning sun's rays in a parabolic mirror.

The ceremony comes amid political and economic turmoil in the home of the Ancient Olympics, where a week-long leg of the relay will be held. 

The flame flies to Britain on 18 May for a 70-day relay around the UK.

Locog Chairman Lord Coe, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge and Hellenic Olympic Committee president Spyros Capralos will be in Olympia for the moment marking the countdown to London 2012.

Lord Coe told the BBC: "Today is the rallying call to the athletes - the best athletes of their generation - to come to London. That in itself is a big moment because it's the biggest sporting event in the calendar."

 

World champion swimmer Spyros Gianniotis will be the first to carry the torch

 

The lighting ceremony takes place in front of the ruins of the Temple of Hera from 11:30 local time (09:30BST) 

The flame - an Olympic symbol meant to represent purity because it comes from the sun - is then placed in an urn and taken to the stadium where the ancient Olympic Games were staged. 

There, it will light the London 2012 torch of Liverpool-born Greek world champion 10km swimmer Spyros Gianniotis, who will carry it on the first leg of the relay around Greece. 

He will pass it on to Alex Loukos, 19, the first British torchbearer, a boxer and, in 2005, one of a delegation of east London schoolchildren who travelled to Singapore as part of London's final bid for the Games. 

The torch is due to travel 2,900kms (1,800 miles) through the country, carried by 500 torchbearers, on a route circling the country and travelling out to Crete. 

 

The Greek relay starts in Olympia and finishes in Athens, taking in Crete

Greece has seen huge demonstrations of social unrest in previous months, sparked by financial chaos and efforts to reach a deal with the European Union on a bail-out for the Greek economy. 

Talks to try to form a new government have been ongoing after elections on Sunday failed to produce a conclusive result.

Several international companies including BMW have stepped in to help fund the torch's journey.

The Greek section of the 2012 torch relay ends at the Panathenaic Stadium, Athens, on Thursday 17 May, where the flame is handed over to London Olympic Games organisers.

The stadium hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.

The last torchbearers in Greece will be Greek weightlifter Pyrros Dimas and Chinese gymnast Li Ning - who lit the cauldron at the Beijing 2008 opening ceremony. 

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London 2012 - One extraordinary year

• The BBC's home of 2012: Latest Olympic news, sport, culture, torch relay, video and audio

The 2008 Olympic torch relay, which travelled the globe, was dogged by pro-Tibet, democracy and anti-China protests.

The 2012 flame will travel straight from Greece to the UK on 18 May, flying into the Royal Navy airbase at Culdrose, near Helston in Cornwall. 

The UK torch relay begins at Land's End the following morning when three times Olympic gold medal-winning sailor Ben Ainslie will be the first to carry the torch on British soil. 

He wrote in the Daily Telegraph: "It is a privilege for me to be asked but, more than anything, it is an exciting moment for the country.

"The arrival of the torch on home soil really brings home how close the Games are."

Carried by 8,000 torchbearers, the Barber Osgerby-designed torch will cover 8,000 miles across all of the country's nations and regions. 

It is due to reach the Olympic Stadium in Stratford on 27 July to light the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. 

For the ancient Greeks, fire was a divine element believed to have been stolen from the Gods.

A flame was first lit at the modern Olympics at the Amsterdam 1928 summer games, but it was not until Berlin 1936 that a torch relay route was set out from Greece to Germany.

Viewers in the UK can see live coverage of the torch lighting ceremony on the BBC News Channel, BBC Radio 5 Live and www.bbc.co.uk/2012/ on Thursday morning.

Maurice Sendak dead: ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ author was 83

Maurice Sendak, the renowned children's book author who revolutionized the genre, has died. He was 83.

Sendak died on Tuesday from complications caused by a recent stroke, his editor told the New York Times. He lived in Ridgefield, Conn., and was hospitalized in nearby Danbury. According to the Associated Press, Sendak had suffered the stroke on Friday.

Sendak wrote and illustrated more than 50 children's books--including "Where the Wild Things Are," his most famous, published in 1963.

The book--about a disobedient boy named Max who, after being sent to his room without supper, creates a surreal world inhabited by wild creatures--won Sendak the coveted Caldecott Medal, the equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize, in 1964. "Where The Wild Things Are" was adapted into a live-action film by Spike Jonze in 2009.

"Where The Wild Things Are" was not only revolutionary--it was wildly profitable, selling more than 17 million copies, according to Bloomberg.com.

Sendak's other groundbreaking works include "In the Night Kitchen," "Outside Over There," "The Sign on Rosie's Door," "Higglety Pigglety Pop!" and "The Nutshell Library." "Bumble-Ardy," his first book in 30 years, was published by HarperCollins last year. A posthumous picture book, "My Brother's Book," is slated for 2012.

Sendak "transformed children's literature from a gentle playscape into a medium to address the psychological intensity of growing up," the Washington Post said in an obituary.

His "unsentimental approach to storytelling revolutionized the genre," the Los Angeles Times said.

"In book after book," the New York Times wrote, "Mr. Sendak upended the staid, centuries-old tradition of American children's literature, in which young heroes and heroines were typically well scrubbed and even better behaved; nothing really bad ever happened for very long; and everything was tied up at the end in a neat, moralistic bow."

That's why, perhaps, Sendak could never break free from being labeled a children's book author, despite his exploration of darker themes.

"I write books as an old man," Sendak said in a 2003 interview. "But in this country you have to be categorized, and I guess a little boy swimming in the nude in a bowl of milk can't be called an adult book. So I write books that seem more suitable for children, and that's OK with me. They are a better audience and tougher critics. Kids tell you what they think, not what they think they should think."

In January, Sendak appeared on "The Colbert Report," giving Stephen Colbert advice on how to make it as a children's book author. "You've started already by being an idiot," Sendak said.

President Barack Obama has made it something of a tradition to read from "Where The Wild Things Are" at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. In the clip below, Obama reads from the book in 2009.

 

Rick Santorum Formally Endorses Mitt Romney

 

Rick Santorum has officially endorsed Mitt Romney, and notified his supporters in an email sent Monday night.

In the email, the former presidential candidate cited his Friday meeting with Romney in his hometown of Pittsburgh as a reason he finally got behind the presumptive GOP nominee.

"On Friday, Governor Romney came to Pittsburgh for an over-hour long one-on-one meeting," Santorum said in the email. "The conversation was candid, collegial and focused on the issues that you helped me give voice to during our campaign; because I believe they are essential ingredients to not only winning this fall, but turning our country around."

The email thanked supporters and was sent in separately to various backers. The letter said the issue of "endorsement did not come up," but the former Pennsylvania senator has heard whether he should weigh a "formal endorsement" or not.

"Thank you for your counsel, it has been most helpful," Santorum wrote in the email. "However, I felt that it was completely impossible for me to even consider an endorsement until after a meeting to discuss issues critical to those of us who often feel our voices are not heard by the establishment: social conservatives, tea party supporters, lower and middle income working families."

Santorum said that in the meeting he "felt a deep responsibility to assess Governor Romney's commitment to addressing the issues most important to conservatives, as well his commitment to ensuring our appropriate representation in a Romney administration.'

He said he was "impressed" with Romney's "deep understand" of the presumptive GOP nominee's "deep understanding of this connection and his commitment to economic policies that preserve and strengthen families."

In the lengthy email, Santorum encouraged Romney to "add more conservative leaders as an integral part of his team."

"And you can be sure that I will work with the Governor to help him in this task to ensure he has a strong team that will support him in his conservative policy initiatives," Santorum said.

Santorum told his supporters he intends to "keep lines of communication open."

"Above all else, we both agree that President Obama must be defeated," the letter read. "The task will not be easy. It will require all hands on deck if our nominee is to be victorious. Governor Romney will be that nominee and he has my endorsement and support to win this the most critical election of our lifetime."

He ended the letter promising his supporter he will have details of his own new venture soon.

Close advisers say it was Santorum's own decision to do it late Monday night. Tuesday, Santorum will appear on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," and it was previously thought that Santorum would make his feelings known then.

The Worst Habits for Your Heart

 

Lifestyle factors you can easily change account for more than 90 percent of heart attack risk, a landmark study of about 30,000 people in 52 countries suggests. And making small, positive changes in your everyday habits can have a surprisingly big impact on your heart health—or even save your life. 

Here’s a look at six of the worst habits for your heart, and how to turn them around.

 

Being Glued to the Tube

Spending too much time parked in front of the TV can actually be fatal, according to a 2011 study published in Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The researchers found that people who devoted four or more hours a day to screen-based entertainment—mainly watching the tube--had double the risk of a major cardiac event resulting in hospitalization, death or both, compared to those who spent less than two hours daily on these activities.

Another compelling reason to limit TV time: Those who spent the most time on leisure-time screen-based entertainment had a 48 percent higher risk of dying prematurely, even if they also exercised. Recent research also shows that too much sitting can be just as bad for your heart as smoking.

The Warning Signs of Heart Attack

Having a Negative Attitude

 While stress and depression have long been linked to higher heart disease risk, a new Harvard review of more than 200 earlier studies, published this month in Psychological Bulletin, highlights the benefits of turning that frown upside-down: An optimistic outlook may cut heart disease and stroke danger by 50 percent.

And while you may think that happy people are just healthier, the researchers found that the association between an upbeat attitude and reduced cardiovascular risk held true even when they took the person’s age, weight, smoking status, and other risk factors into account.

Research also shows that laughter literally does the heart good, by expanding the linings of blood vessels and boosting blood flow. A fun way to add more joy to your life—and defuse stress--is laughter yoga, an exercise program that combines self-triggered mirth with deep yogic breathing to  draw oxygen deeper into the body.

Top 10 Simple Ways to Leave Stress Behind

Ignoring Snoring

 Frequent loud snoring can trumpet obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a dangerous disorder that magnifies heart attack and stroke risk, if untreated. OSA (bouts of interrupted breathing during sleep) frequently goes undiagnosed because people don’t recognize the symptoms, which include waking at night for no apparent reason and unexplained daytime drowsiness.

If you fit this profile, ask your doctor to order a sleep study. Because OSA, which affects 18 million Americans, is most common in people who are heavy, treatment typically involves weight loss and in some cases, continuously positive airway pressure (CPAP), a device that blows moist, heated air in your nose and mouth as you sleep.

Can an Oral Device Treat Sleep Apnea?

Forgoing Fiber

 Not only does a high-fiber diet boost your heart health, but it could add years to your life, according to a recent study of nearly 400,000 people, conducted by the National Institutes of Health and American Association of Retired People.

The researchers found that men ages 50 and older who ate the most fiber were up to 56 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, infectious diseases and respiratory ailments, compare to those who ate the least. For women ages 50 and up, a high-fiber diet lowered risk of death from these causes by nearly 60 percent.

Another study involving more than 300,000 men and women found that eating eight servings of fruits and vegetables a day trims the risk of a fatal heart attack by 22 percent, compared to eating less than three. Researchers from the World Cancer Research Fund also report that if we ate more fiber, and less red meat, more than 64,000 cancer deaths would be prevented annually.

Failing to Floss

 People with periodontal (gum) disease are nearly twice as likely to have heart disease as those with healthy gums. While the reasons for the link aren’t yet clear, one theory is that the same bacteria that trigger gum disease may also spark inflammation inside the body, damaging arteries. Gum disease affects nearly 50 percent of Americans, many of whom don’t know they have it, because in the early stages, it’s painless.

A new study published in Journal of Aging Research adds to mounting evidence that one of the simplest—and cheapest—secrets of long life is taking care of your teeth, with daily brushing and flossing. Conversely, neglecting your chompers—and skipping dental visits—can be lethal, the researchers report. During the 17-year study, those who never flossed were 30 percent more likely to die than were those who flossed daily.

Smoking Even a Little

 Smoking even one cigarette a day increases the threat of heart attack by 63 percent and smoking 20 or more cigarettes a day more than quadruples it.

Need more motivation to quit? Tobacco use also boosts risk for diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and many types of cancer. A 2010 study reports that using a nicotine patch for six months makes it easier for smokers to kick the habit. Munching on low-calorie foods, such as carrot or celery sticks, or chewing sugarless gum, can also help curb nicotine cravings.

Britney Spears' Cinco de Mayo Celebration

The pop star celebrates the festive holiday at home with friends and family.

Britney Spears celebrated Cinco de Mayo with friends and family -- including fiance Jason Trawick -- at a house party in Brentwood, California, on Saturday. The 30-year-old singer sported a red belly-baring top and casual denim cutoffs for the festive occasion, which commemorates the Mexican army's 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War. In U.S. cities with large Mexican populations (such as Los Angeles), it also serves as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride. (5/5/2012)

 

Though the new "X Factor" judge's sons Sean Preston and Jayden James weren't at the bash (it must have been K-Fed's weekend to have the boys), she cuddled up with her brother Bryan's adorable daughter. Could she be another pop star in the making? (5/5/2012)

 

 

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Obat dari Daging Manusia !

Obat ini berbentuk Kapsul. Obat ini kemudian disita.

Pihak Bea Cukai Korea Selatan menyita ribuan kapsul selundupan dari Cina yang berisi bubuk daging manusia berasal dari janin dan jenazah bayi, demikian menurut para pejabat. Pihak bea cukai mengatakan kapsul yang dibuat di Cina timur laut itu diisi bubuk yang dibuat dari jenazah bayi yang dipotong-potong kecil dan dikeringkan di kompor.

Para pria yang membeli kapsul itu disebutkan percaya isinya dapat meningkatkan stamina seksual. Namun pihak berwenang menolak mengungkapkan asal bayi dan siapa yang membuat kapsul, dengan menyatakan kemungkinan bisa menjadi ketegangan diplomatik dengan Beijing. Para pejabat Cina sendiri berupaya meredam produksi kapsul-kapsul itu sejak tahun lalu.

Pihak Bea Cukai Korsel sudah menggagalkan 35 upaya penyelundupan kapsul sejak Agustus tahun lalu dan berhasil menyita 17.450 kapsul. Badan Pengawas Makanan Korea Selatan mulai menyelidiki kasus itu tahun lalu dan belum ada laporan terkait efek samping mereka yang mengkonsumsi kapsul itu.

   

Kapsul yang mengandung daging manusia itu juga diperkirakan mengandung bakteri dan bahan berbahaya lain. "Kapsul itu dipastikan mengandung bahan berbahaya bagi tubuh manusia, termasuk bakteri super. Kami perlu mengambil langkah lebih keras untuk melindungi kesehatan publik," kata seorang pejabat Bea Cukai Korsel.

Makanan dan obat beracun merupakan masalah besar di Cina. Namun, sejauh ini tidak ada yang dijatuhi hukuman karena jumlah kapsul yang disita sedikit dan tidak diperuntukkan untuk jual beli. Media Cina menyebut provinsi-provinsi di timur laut merupakan sumber kapsul seperti itu.

Saat itu Kementerian Kesehatan Cina mengatakan akan menyelidiki klaim itu. "Cina memiliki ketentuan keras terkait dengan penguburan janin dan jenazah bayi serta plasenta. Praktik apa pun terkait limbah medis seperti ini dilarang keras," kata juru bicara Kementerian Kesehatan Deng Haihua.(BBC/ADO)

Tabloid Serial Rumah, 10 Inspirasi Desain Rumah Usaha,

Usaha di Rumah, Tak Sekedar Usaha Sampingan

Bekerja dan berusaha di rumah adalah fenomena tersendiri dalam kehidupan masyarakat yang modern. Saat ini banyak orang ingin membuka usaha di rumah, misalnya membuka usaha butik, took kecil, memberi les music, dan sebagainya. Untuk keperluan ini, rumah mau tak mau harus direnovasi agar kebutuhan ruang untuk usaha tersebut terpenuhi dan tidak boleh sembarangan, sebab aturan yang harus ditaati dan juga kenyamanan penghuni yang harus diperhatikan. 

Cermat dan Tepat Memilih Jenis Usaha

Langkah utama dan pertama adalah menentukan usaha apa yang sesuai untuk dilakukan. Apapun jenis usaha yang dipilih, perlu dilakukan studi kelayakan sebelumnya. Ada beberapa data untuk menentukan dan memilih jenis usaha:

1. Kebutuhan

2. Minat, Kemampuan, dan Modal

3. Dampak yang Ditimbulkan

Selain itu, apabila usaha di rumah harus melibatkan pihak luar, tentunya diupayakan segala aktivitasnya jangan sampai menimbulkan gangguan kepada pihak-pihak lain. Artinya, keramaian yang diakibatkan tersebut jangan sampai menimbulkan ketidaknyamanan bagi orang-orang di sekitar kita. 

Perlukah Izin untuk Usaha di Rumah?

· Untuk usaha yang sudah dilengkapi oleh dokumen legalitas, seperti akte pendirian oleh Notaris, biasanya memerlukan keterangan domisili. Maka, dengan sendirinya perlu dibuatkan izin usaha dari instansi Pemerintah setempat.

· Usaha di rumah yang melibatkan banyak orang, dengan sendirinya akan memberikan dampak kepada lingkungan dan tetangga. Untuk itu perlu meminta izin kepada instansi Pemerintah setempat berupa “Undang-undang Gangguan” yang diambil dari Peraturan Daerah Setempat.

· Meskipun telah mendapatkan izin kepada instansi Pemerintah, alangkah baiknya apabila tetangga terdekat di sekitar rumah mendapat pemberitahuan, baik lisan maupun tertulis, akan adanya usaha di rumah ini. 

Merancang Ruang Usaha, Antara Kebutuhan dan Etika

Apapun jenis usaha yang akan dipilih, sebaiknya ada batas yang jelas antara ruang usaha dan tempat tinggal, rancang sesuai kebutuhan yang ada dengan tetap memperhatikan etika. Usaha apapun tentunya akan melibatkan orang lain, baik itu anggota keluarga, maupun orang luar yang bisa saja menjadi karyawan, pelanggan atau rekan.