Dr M Khalid's global village blog

Members of Partners in Health work with representatives from Liberia and Sierra Leone via conference call to help combat the Ebola outbreak. (Jesse Costa/WBUR) BOSTON — A group of Boston doctors just finished the first  Ebola response training program run by the Centers for Disease Control. They’re part of a larger contingent that Boston-based Partners In Health  will be sending to parts of West Africa, where the virus is running rampant. The chief medical officer at Partners In Health,  Dr. Joia Mukherjee , was in Monrovia, Liberia, last week and at this week’s CDC training. WBUR’s  Sacha Pfeiffer  spoke with Dr. Mukherjee and asked about reports of Ebola deaths happening in the streets of some west African communities. Dr. Joia Mukherjee : You see that in isolated areas, maybe in one neighborhood of the city or maybe in one village. I mean, the city itself looks like a normal African city. It’s bustling. People are going to work. They’re ...

I swear I don’t go looking for alarming news about benzodiazepines, drugs widely prescribed for insomnia and anxiety. But it shows up with some frequency, so, mindful of your fervidly held views on the subject, I am donning a hazmat suit to bring you the latest findings from the medical journal BMJ. They’re disturbing. In previous posts, I reported that long-term use by older people of drugs called sedative-hypnotics, which includes benzos (like Ativan, Xanax, Valium and Klonopin) and the related “z-drugs” (Ambien, Lunesta), has for years  caused concern among some researchers . Some readers took exception, arguing that critics minimize the miseries of chronic sleeplessness, reflexively condemn all drug dependence or condescendingly assume older people can’t make smart decisions. “The Ambien I use is low dose and I am not an idiot,” commented a miffed Margaret Moffitt of Roanoke, Va. The doctors and health organizations I have spoken to, however, point to much higher rate...

It’s the time of year when elite universities vie for bragging rights about the performance of their endowments. The  probable winner this year is Yale University, which posted a whopping 20.2 percent return. Dartmouth reported a 19.2 percent return, and the University of Pennsylvania showed 17.5 percent. Harvard, the 800-pound gorilla of the endowment world, reported a measly  15.4 percent.  Not coincidentally, it installed a  new chief executive officer  for Harvard Management Co., which oversees the university's $34.6 billion nest egg. How did this competition among "non-profit" universities come to extend from sports and academics to financial prowess? Universities have long had endowments: permanent funds that generate annual returns. But until the 1890s, most institutions made no concerted effort to pursue high rates of return, much less expand the underlying endowment. In fact, most donations to universities typically went to cover shortfalls in o...

The fake control systems were made to look like they were located in the U.S., the U.K., Amsterdam, Brazil, Tokyo and Singapore. We wanted a variety of locations to show that systems everywhere are under attack. Over a three-month period ending last week, the U.S. was by far the biggest source of attack traffic (more than 6,000 attacks), followed by China (more than 3,500), Russia (more than 2,500), the Netherlands and France. Industrial networks are already under daily assault by hackers, and that threat is only growing as more countries develop advanced cyber-war capabilities. Few have been as thoroughly revealed to the public as the United States' through the disclosures of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Martin and I decided on setting up an online decoy known as a honeypot, which was made to look like an enticing industrial-control computer to hackers. It's designed to attract attacks so they can be traced and studied. The graphic below ...

With interest rates barely above zero, the typical U.S. savings account has all the excitement of, well, waiting in line at the bank. But what if instead of marketing yet another CD or credit card, banks held raffles and gave millions away each month to savers? The local bank might feel less like the villain behind those big  overdraft fees   and more like a casino on the Vegas strip. A bank in South Africa tried this in 2005. The First National Bank's Million-a-Month Account promised savers a chance to win 113 prizes a month, including a grand prize of 1 million South African rand (about U.S.$150,000 at the time). Within 18 months, the bank had more prize-eligible accounts than regular ones. These new customers, many of them poor, saved an extra 1 percent of their incomes, a recent study found , and boosted their overall saving 38 percent. The only thing preventing a big bank from doing this in the U.S.: It's completely illegal. A  bill in Congress  -- which p...

Pacific Investment Management Co. may see asset withdrawals of as much as 30 percent after the surprise departure of  Bill Gross , a legend in the bond world who became a familiar face to Main Street investors as they poured money into the firm’s funds through retirement plans. Money managers said they are monitoring developments at Newport Beach, California-based Pimco, which manages $1.97 trillion in assets and has seen record redemptions as investors turned away from fixed-income in anticipation of rising interest rates. Sanford Bernstein said in a report today that Pimco could see withdrawals of 10 percent to 30 percent. “Stunning,” Michael Rosen, chief investment officer at Santa Monica, California-based Angeles Investment Advisors, said of the departure. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-26/pimco-could-see-withdrawals-up-to-30-as-managers-stunned.html (Reuters) - Bill Gross' abrupt departure from Pimco, the giant bond firm that he co-founded more than four decade...

In the world of Internet start-ups, taking on  Google's  main business has been a fool's errand. The graveyard of failed search engines is long and deep, and while there are still challengers promising safer or more relevant results, Google's market share only goes in one direction: up. But when it comes to mobile, the market is playing out very differently. At least that's the wager that youthful companies such as  URX ,  Deeplink  and  Branch Metrics  are making. They're all operating with a fairly simple thesis: search on mobile is kind of lame. Consumers on the move don't go to Google.com to type in queries, but instead open travel, shopping, music and news apps to find what they want. Mobile users in the U.S. spend 86 percent of their time in apps and only 14 percent on the Web, according to mobile analytics company  Flurry  (now owned by  Yahoo ). "The way that people find information on the phone is totally different," sai...

Hyderabad:  With the formation of the new state of Telangana, on June 2, 2014, 20 per cent of the head-offices in Hyderabad are expected to shift to Andhra Pradesh. Since both states have stable governments, the industrial sector is expected to attract more investment. There will be a slight increase in taxation due to the increased two per cent CST (Central Sales Tax), which will have a knock-on effect on the cost of goods. However, no physical movement of industries or labour is expected from one state to the other, despite the fact that 50 per cent of the industries in Telangana are owned by industrialists from AP. The ailing industrial sector will see more growth in the already existing growth clusters, and many new clusters will be developed depending on the new governments’ policies. Industry insiders predict a bright scenario with more incentives coming their way from both states to woo them. While currently industrial growth is more in Telangana region, a majority o...

Dorms are filling up, classes are starting, and Frisbees are flying above quads at colleges and universities across the country. But these familiar seasonal patterns don't reflect how a growing number of students are starting the year. More and more older Americans are heading back to school, often part time or in the evenings, and their rate of enrollment is rising faster than students of typical college age. In 2009, students aged 25 and older accounted for roughly 40 percent of all college and graduate students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That figure is expected to rise to 43 percent by 2020 as 9.6 million older students head to campus. Students over age 35, who accounted for 17 percent of all college and graduate students in 2009, are expected to comprise 19 percent of that total by 2020. "Older workers are seeing this sort of as a gateway to create a lifestyle later in life that they want," said Cyndi Hutchins, director ...

Funding platforms  usually known for financing young companies  are being used more and more by  public school teachers to buy supplies Jocelyn Benford, a second grade teacher at PS 261 in a low-income neighborhood in New York's Brooklyn borough, finds it frustrating how little money she is given to provide something as basic as pencils and paper for the year. "Even something as simple as copy paper. I have to provide my own copy paper," Benford said. "So anytime I send a letter home to parents I'm providing that copy paper." She knows first-hand how expensive shopping for school supplies can be. When her daughter was a second grader, Benford spent nearly $150 on supplies for the year. "It's not possible for some of the parents because they're too busy or struggling financially."  It's not just paper these teachers struggle to provide for their students. Melissa Farran, another PS 261 teacher, wanted to see an improvement on her...

The world’s largest ultra mega solar power park to generate 2,500 MW is being established in Andhra Pradesh, Union Minister of Power and Coal, Piyush Goyal announced here on Tuesday. Speaking at the signing of a joint document between the Government of India and the Andhra Pradesh government to implement ‘Power For All’ (PFA) from October 2, a programme to supply quality power round the clock for domestic and industrial consumers in the State, he termed it “path-breaking.” Besides the signing of the PFA initiative, a spate of other MoUs were signed in the presence of Mr. Goyal, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and Union Civil Aviation Minister P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju to mark the completion of 100 days in office by the Telugu Desam government. In all, the State government inked 10 MoUs and the total investment from NTPC, DRDO, Hero Motor Corporation and others would be over Rs.80,000 crore. The other MoUs included handing over of 1,200 acres by APIIC to NTPC t...

NEWS REVIEWS FEATURES VIDEOS HUBS COMPARE MOBILES TABLET FINDER MOBILES TABLETS APPS GAMING CAMERAS TELECOM SCIENCE PC/LAPTOPS WEARABLES HOW TO YOU ARE HERE: Gadgets Home   Mobiles Mobiles News Android One Was Conceived With India in Mind, Says Google's Sundar Pichai by  NDTV Correspondent ,  September 15, 2014 in Share As  Google launched the Android One platform  on Monday,  Sundar Pichai  Senior Vice President, Android, Chrome and Apps at Google spoke exclusively to NDTV Group CEO Vikram Chandra. This is one of the biggest launches we've done anywhere, not just India, Pichai told NDTV. "For us Android One was a journey to try and reach the next 5 billion people. And India accounts for a substantial portion of the share. Android One was conceived deeply with India in mind," he said. India is the first country that is getting Android One smartphones. Android...