Russian workers bathe in milk at cheese factory

MOSCOW, April 04, 2014 (AFP) - Russia on Friday launched a criminal investigation into breaches of hygiene at a cheese factory after footage of bare-chested workers bathing in vats of milk went viral on the Internet.
The Investigative Committee announced it was probing the factory in the Siberian city of Omsk for producing food that could cause harm to health after photographs of grinning workers bathing in foaming milk horrified Russians.
"It has already been established that the liquid that the factory workers were bathing in was the raw milk that was used for making the cheese," the investigators said in a statement.
The scandal broke after a worker at the Omsk Cheeses factory posted the photographs on a social networking site with the caption: "Actually our work is pretty boring."
One photo shows six workers posing in a vat, several wearing only shorts, and raising 
victory signs.
Video footage also emerged showing factory workers kneading the cheese bare-chested
 in a dirty-looking production area, gaining more than 300,000 views on YouTube.
Russia's food watchdog banned the factory's cheese late last month and a court on 
Thursday closed down the factory for 40 days.
The factory had sold more than 49 tons of its cheese this year in 14 cities, the Investigative
 Committee said. It specialises in string cheese.
If charged and found guilty of producing food that was unsafe for human consumption,
 the factory's managers could be jailed for up to two years.

Life is good in Chilean Antarctica

Villa Las Estrellas in Chile's Frei base in Antartica where 64 families live.
Photo taken on March 11, 2014. — AFP

The Commander Ferraz Station in Brazil's side of Antarctica..

A cute penguin

Good pay, no crime, no traffic

VILLA LAS ESTRELLAS, Antarctica, April 04, 2014 (AFP) -There is no crime or traffic and in this Antarctic hamlet paychecks can be much higher than on the Chilean mainland. Plus, the penguins are very cute.
But residents of Villa Las Estrellas also have to endure winters with howling blizzards and temperatures that plunge to -40 Celsius in winter, making it painful to even breathe outdoors.
And they don't get many visitors.
"Living here is entertaining compared with the continent," said Jose Carrillan Rosales, principal of the tiny Las Estrellas school.
"The hard part is spending many days indoors. For example, last winter we spent eight days without leaving home because of the wind and snow," he told AFP.
Villa Las Estrellas is located at Fildes Bay on King George Island on the northernmost tip of the Antarctic peninsula.
The 30-year-old hamlet, population 64, has a post office, a bank, 10 houses, a miniature mall, a gym and a school for the six children who live there. It is part of the Presidente Eduardo Frei Chilean Air Base.
Most of the residents are relatives of the military personnel on the air base.
One attraction of living so far south is the exotic fauna, especially the long tailed Gentoo Penguins, which have bright orange bills and white stripes between their eyes across the top of their heads.
To survive in this remote town one must be highly organized: the local market opens just twice a week and stock is limited. Locals stockpile their own soap, toothpaste and shampoo.
Rosales, originally from a mainland town south of Santiago, has been in Las Estrellas for two years along with his wife — also a teacher at the school — and his two children.
He's happy living in the remote outpost.
"Life here is tranquil, you're not worried about theft, or with traffic," he said. He's also happy that he can be with his children "all day".
Life in Antarctica might be bleak, but plenty of Chileans would like Rosales's job. For a teacher, the pay can be five times higher than on the mainland.
"To come here, there is a nationwide contest," said Rosales's wife Maria Cristina Hernandez.
"The first requirement is for both applicants to be teachers and married to each other," she said.
Other requirements include a master's degree and at least one year of work experience.
Single candidates need not apply, she said, because there is only one house to live in.
The school opened in 1985, and since then 290 children — sons and daughters of Chilean air force members and base support personnel — have spent time in its classrooms.
Nine year old Josefina Opaso's father is an air force officer, and her mother works at the small shopping center.
"It's fascinating to live in a place that almost nobody can come to see," she told AFP.
"It's also a challenge because living here one has to go out well protected in warm clothes. Sometimes we can't go out because of the blizzards. It's the hard part of living here in Antarctica," she said.
Francisco Fuentes, 62, is manager of the sole bank — BCI, or Banco de Credito e Inversiones— in the village.
He has two grown children and a wife of 37 years, but left them on the mainland to become the bank manager.
Fuentes's customers can withdraw Chilean pesos, transfer money, exchange US dollars, and manage their investments at the bank.
"What I enjoy doing here are things I would never have thought of when I lived in the continent, like flying in a helicopter over glaciers," said Fuentes.
And his pay is also pretty good: about 120 percent more than what he would earn back north.

British Queen gives Pope Francis eggs, whisky

VATICAN CITY, March 3 (Reuters) - Queen Elizabeth met Pope Francis for the first time on Thursday and gave a bemused pontiff culinary delights from the royal estates, including a dozen eggs and a bottle of whisky.

"I've also brought something from all our estates, which is for you personally," said the queen, wearing a lavender dress and a purple hat, as she handed Francis a wicker basket full of food at the end of a 17-minute private meeting in the Vatican.

Queen Elizabeth shakes hands with Pope Francis
during their meeting at the Vatican Thursday, March 3, 2014.

The 18 items from Buckingham Palace, Windsor, Sandringham and Balmoral also included two types of honey, "Coronation Best Bitter," "Grandad's chutney" and "Sandringham handmade aromatherapy soaps".

A Vatican official said the pope would likely share the food with other residents of the guest house where he has lived since his election after renouncing the spacious papal apartments or would donate it.

The Queen and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, met the pope in a modern room attached to the Vatican's audience hall without much of the ceremonial pomp that usually accompanies such visits.

A Vatican statement did not say what the two discussed. The Queen is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, which split from Rome in 1534.

The pope is Argentine and Britain went to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands, which Argentina calls the Malvinas, in 1982.

To cut short any speculation that the two might have discussed the Falklands, the British embassy reminded reporters that while the pope may be Argentine, the Vatican's official position on the territorial dispute is a neutral one.

Francis also gave the queen a gift for her eight-month-old great-grandson, Prince George of Cambridge. It was a sphere made of lapis lazuli, a deep blue semi-precious stone, topped with the silver cross of St. Edward.

"He will be thrilled by it," the queen told the pope. Then she paused and added: "When he is a little older".

Native American 'missing link' was from Asia: Study

The place in Montana where the burial site was found. — AFP

Artifacts taken from the site. — AFP

PARIS (AFP) — Nearly 13,000 years ago, a baby boy died in what is Montana today.
Mourners stained his tiny body with red ochre and entombed him with artefacts that had likely been in his family for generations.
After lying undisturbed for millennia, the infant's body was dug up by accident at a construction site in 1968 — the oldest skeleton ever found in the Americas.
Now, scientists say the remains have helped them settle a long-standing debate about the lineage of indigenous Americans, and shed light on the settlement of the last continent to be populated by modern humans.
After decoding the child's genome, an international team of experts said they can confirm that modern Native Americans are direct descendents of the first people to have settled the continent from Asia some 15,000 years ago, and not migrants from Europe.
"The genetic data... confirms that the ancestors of this boy originated from Asia," said Michael Waters of the Texas-based Center for the Study of the First Americans, who co-authored the report in the journal Nature.
The child's family, in turn, were "directly ancestral to present-day Native Americans".
The boy had been a member of the so-called Clovis culture which lived in North America between 13,000 and 12,600 years ago and is known for its distinctive hand axes, blades and bone and ivory tools.
There has long been a dispute as to where the group's ancestors came from.
Some believed Clovis forefathers came from east Asia, crossing the Bering Strait, which about 15,000 years ago formed an ice bridge.
Others claimed to have found evidence that Native Americans derived from a cross-Atlantic migration of southwestern Europeans during the Last Glacial Maximum some 21,000 to 17,000 yeas ago, when vast ice sheets covered much of North America, northern Europe and Asia.
Genetic analysis showed the boy, who was 12-18 months old when he died about 12,600 years ago, was more similar to Siberians than other Eurasians or any other people in the world, the scientists reported.
"The study does not support the idea that the first Americans originated from Europe," said Waters.
"A single migration of humans introduced the majority of the founding population of the Americas south of the ice sheet at the close of the last Ice Age."
According to co-author Eske Willerslev of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, the child's family was "directly ancestral to so many peoples in the Americas.
"It is astonishing. We don't have of course genetic information from all tribes, but you could say that just a very, very rough estimate would be about 80 percent deriving from that group. It's almost like a missing link."
Examination of the remains have also yielded new insight into the cultural practices of the first inhabitants of the Americas.
The child's remains had been found buried under 125 artefacts that included spear points and tools made of elk antler.
The skeleton as well as the relics, which were dated to about 13,000 years ago, had been covered in powdered ochre, a type of mineral.
"The difference in age between the skeleton and the... tools as well as the fact that this (elk) was a rare animal, suggest that the artefacts were very special ritual objects or heirlooms passed down over generations," said Waters.
Researchers on the team said they were eager to build closer ties with Native American groups in their future scientific pursuits.
"We want to bring American Indians to the table with this research so they can help guide the most respectful and appropriate way to do this kind of research," said Shane Doyle of Montana State University.
The child's remains are to be reburied later this year.

Floating school offers hope in 'Venice of Africa'

Venice of Africa

LAGOS — It's been dubbed the "Venice of Africa" but comparisons between the sprawling Lagos community of Makoko and the historic Italian city begin and end at the water's edge.
Makoko's makeshift huts rise from the murky waters of the lagoon around Nigeria's biggest city, a far cry from the ornate bridges and buildings that mark out Venice's cultural and commercial past.
The arts transformed Venice and sealed its reputation as one of the most important centers of the European Renaissance.
Now it is hoped that education, with the help of innovative architecture, can help create a better future for the children of Makoko.
The prospect comes in the shape of a floating school, built entirely by locals and launched last year, whose triangular frame rises from the water like a half-built house submerged in a flood.
The project, backed by the UN Development Fund, the Nigerian government and the Heinrich Boell Foundation, is the brainchild of local architect Kunle Adeyemi.
His design was inspired by life in the so-called "slum on stilts" and he said that improving the neglected area required a new approach more in tune with local customs and the environment.

The floating school in Makoko

"Living on water is actually a way of life... so, the question is then how do you improve that condition, how do you address the challenges of living on water in a safe, healthy and environmentally sound way?" he told AFP TV.
Unlike Venice, which attracts millions of tourists from around the world every year, few visitors to Lagos are likely to find their way to Makoko.
From the Third Mainland Bridge which snakes nearly 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) through the lagoon, thick wood smoke and fumes from diesel-powered generators can be seen hanging above the patchwork of corrugated iron and tarpaulin roofs.
Fishermen on the lagoon scour the waters in search of the day's catch. Wooden canoes —the only way to get around — ply the watery strips between the flimsy lean-to shacks and washing lines.
The new school is also visible from the bridge, floating on 250 empty blue barrels fixed under its wooden base designed to get around the problems of periodic flooding in the area.
Its three storeys make it the tallest structure in Makoko and with 220 square meters (2,370 square feet) of floor space, it is also the neighborhood's biggest communal facility.
Fishermen can tether their canoes to the base and come just to mend their nets, as much as children wanting to learn — often for the very first time — or play.

Side view of the floating school

From the top of the A-frame, under its solar panels, the high-rise buildings and lights of Lagos Island — the heart of Nigeria's financial hub — can be seen in the distance.
The people of Makoko eke out a living by fishing and trading. Few of the estimated 150,000 people who live in the neighborhood can aspire to escape a life of poverty.
Jeremiah Oleole Austin is one of the few young people to have gone on to further education.
"I was born and brought up here so I know how the people suffer, I feel their pain, I feel their cry and I also know their happiness," said the art student, who is also known as "Big Babba".
"I know what they really need in this community and which is not capable for us to do it. Without some... training or skills, how can they go places?
"There's only a few of us that went out into the city to see more... If there are more schools, I believe there is going to be changes in the community."
Headteacher Noah Shemede couldn't agree more.

Kunle Adeyemi

"Every child deserves an education wherever they are," he said. "We are on water and that doesn't mean that we can't go to school on water. We have to.
"We need more schools to accommodate thousands of children that are at home. We need more schools."
Adeyemi for his part said the building could also be used differently — both in Nigeria and beyond.
"Its main aim is to generate a sustainable, ecological, alternative building system and urban water culture for the teeming population of Africa's coastal regions," his firm, NLE, said on its website.
"It is really just a structure that could actually be used for different forms of uses," added the architect.
"It could be a home, you could use the same prototype and develop that into homes, you could develop it into hospitals, you can develop it into a theater, a restaurant, all kinds of facilities.
"The key thing is that we have developed a prototype of building and architecture on water using local materials and local resources and available technology." — AFP

Double take: Twins galore on Havana street

By Andrea Rodriguez


 HAVANA (AP) — Some say it could be something in the water. Others point to a tree with mystical significance for locals. Maybe it's just chance. But neighbors all marvel at the 12 sets of twins living along two consecutive blocks in western Havana, ranging in age from newborns to senior citizens.

In this Sept. 29, 2013 photo twins pose for a portrait near a Siguaraya tree. — AP

 "We were the first ones," said Fe Fernandez, 65, who wears her gray hair closely cropped. "It's incredible!" said her identical sister, Esperanza, who shares the same features but whose black-dyed hair falls to shoulder length. At first blush there isn't much about 68-A Street to mark it as different from anywhere else in the city. But if you spend any amount of time here, before long you might think you're seeing double.
 "Hi, I'm Carla, and this is my sister Camila," said Carla Rodriguez, a smiley, bespectacled 9-year-old. "We're twins and we love living on this block because we have twin friends."
"I never expected it. No fertility treatments. It was my first pregnancy, and at five weeks they did an ultrasound and I was carrying twins," said Tamara Velazquez, who's been busy raising 6-year-old identical sisters Asley and Aslen.
"It's a lot of work. It requires a lot of patience," Velazquez said. "They are very active and dominant, although each has a different character." Ten of the twin sets here are identical, and the other two fraternal. None of the mothers interviewed by The Associated Press said they had received fertility treatments. None of the families are related to each other.

Twins on their way to school in Havana. — AP

All but one of the sets were born into these homes, and the lone newcomers moved into a house that was vacated by twins who moved to Spain. Others have died or moved away over the years. "Twins leave, twins come," Fe Fernandez joked.
The 70 or so houses on these two short blocks are home to around 224 people, extrapolating from national statistics on average household size. That works out to about one set of twins for every 20 people. Historically the rate has been about one per 80 live births, though experts say that's rising globally, primarily in developed countries where fertility treatments are more readily available. It's impossible to say what could be behind the high number of twins here, or whether there is any cause at all.
Scientists say a variety of factors play into twin births, such as race, the mother's age and diet. Western Africa, from where many Afro-Cubans can trace their ancestry, has significantly elevated rates of twinning.
Meanwhile statisticians caution against the human tendency to seek patterns of serendipity in a random world. "Something could definitely be there, it could be a combination of various factors," Andrew Gelman, a statistics professor at Columbia University, said via email. "In addition, opportunistic counting can make a small and natural pattern appear larger."
For example focusing on these two blocks without considering other surrounding ones, he added, "puts the spotlight on a small subset." While there's been no scholarly study of the twins on 68-A Street, they nonetheless consider themselves part of a special community.
Some look to faith for an explanation.
"There are neighbors who are religious. Many say it's the Siguaraya tree, which people ask for things and is in one of the homes," Fe Fernandez said. "The people believe in it strongly." Leafy and embellished with delicate white blossoms, the Siguaraya is considered sacred in the syncretic Afro-Cuban Santeria faith and is associated with a powerful "orisha," or spirit.
Others, like Mercedes Montero, mother of 21-year-old Xavier and Lorena, chalk it up to the luck of the draw. "It's a very big coincidence," Montero said, "one of those strange things in life."

Who's your daddy? DNA clinic gives answers, sparks concerns

* Mobile clinic offers paternity, other biological tests * U.S. demand for DNA testing steadily increasing * Experts concerned about accuracy, psychological impact By Lily Kuo NEW YORK, Aug 22 (Reuters) - A mobile DNA testing facility that looks more like a motor home than a medical clinic is raising questions about the ramifications of quick and easy tests to determine paternity and other biological connections. Once a time-consuming and complicated process, DNA testing has become so accessible that experts worry families and individuals may not be properly prepared for the results. A 28-foot (8.5-meter) recreational vehicle cruising around New York City emblazoned with the question "Who's Your Daddy?", and offering on-the-spot DNA testing services starting at $299, has renewed those concerns. The clinic, operated by a New York company called Health Street, started in 2010 but was revamped two months ago. Passersby can hail the conspicuous brown and blue Winnebago to have DNA samples taken by a technician, packaged and sent to a laboratory in Ohio. Results are returned within three to five business days. Mandatory prescriptions for the tests from a customer's physician can be faxed via the Internet to the RV. While it is common for DNA testing distributors, companies who take the samples and send them to labs for analysis, to offer mobile collection services, Health Street appears to be the first to splash exactly what it does on the vehicle. "DNA TESTING" in bold red lettering is painted on the side. Jared Rosenthal, who founded Health Street and drives the RV, recounts some of the people affected by his service: Two women who learned they were half-sisters, and a man whose suspicion that he might be the father of a friend's daughter was confirmed. "It's just such a serious, fundamental question ... who are your children? Who are your parents?" Rosenthal, 42 said. Experts say there has been a steady increase in demand for such tests in the United States, reaching close to 500,000 a year, according to Michael Baird, director of DNA Diagnostics, a DNA testing laboratory, in part because the rate of births to unmarried women has also been increasing. In 2010, at least 382,199 relationship tests were conducted in the United States, although the total is likely higher because some labs don't submit data, according to the AABB, formerly known as the American Association of Blood Banks, which accredits relationship testing facilities. State child-support agencies make up the bulk of this demand, but experts said the number of people simply seeking answers, and the accompanying number of venues and ways to test for family relationships, have increased. Susan Crockin, a lawyer who teaches at Georgetown Law Center and specializes in reproductive technology, said families should be careful of the reliability of the growing variety of relationship tests around the country, which range from at-home DNA kits that critics say can be subject to contamination, to on-site tests used to prove legal paternity. "The underlying issues are obviously the quality of testing," Crockin said. Health Street's DNA tests are analyzed in a lab certified by the AABB as well as the New York State Department of Health, Rosenthal said. Health experts advise customers to only use labs accredited by AABB or distributors who use those labs, but there are no regulations on the outfits themselves. It is also not illegal to run a DNA testing laboratory that is not AABB-certified, Baird said. Customers at Health Street must have a prescription from a doctor requesting the tests, Rosenthal said. Paternity testing is usually not covered by health insurance unless there is a medical need. HEARTBREAK CASES Aside from questions about reliability, experts said wider DNA testing raises concerns of whether families and individuals are psychologically prepared for the results. "The bigger question is what do we do with this information. Why are we looking for it and what do we think it means?" Crockin said. Crockin said individuals, especially children, should have the advice of trained genetic counselors before and at the time of receiving the results of the DNA match. Others say the promotion and presence of these DNA testing clinics and methods could devalue past family relationships when new biological connections are discovered. "As this (industry) evolves it will create... a social expectation that, despite a past relationship between a social father and a child, DNA is everything," said David Bishai, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Typical customers at Health Street include men who are engaged and want to confirm offspring from a past relationship, returning soldiers seeking reassurance that they fathered newly-born children, and women inquiring about paternity on behalf of their children, Rosenthal said. The door, however, is open to heartbreak, especially when men discover that somebody else fathered their children. "If you're really happy with the children in your life, don't go near these things," Bishai said. Others are happy to receive the results. Cornelia Heggs, 40, of Carrollton, Georgia, grew up knowing she had half-siblings from her absent father's other marriages but never met them. She was contacted in 2009 by a half-sister who promised their mutual grandmother that she would find Heggs. The two women confirmed their relationship in June through a test at Health Street. "We found each other and now we have the proof. There's no more guessing. I'm just happy to know," she said. For others the information opens an uncertain chapter. A 44-year-old married father of two in New York City confirmed in July through a DNA test at Health Street's mobile clinic that the adult daughter of a woman he dated some 20 years ago was his. The man, who declined to give his name for reasons of privacy, said he is slowly and cautiously building a relationship with his 20-year-old daughter, a student in Ohio. "This issue is still raw and very sensitive," he said. "I will get to know my daughter ... this is something I'm taking one day at a time."