NYMHM: Myanmar gem auction, Nigeria smoke out, Iran divided

Wed Jan 16 14:19:22 PST 2008

======================================================================== 
=====
  NEWS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED * January 16, 2008 * Vol. 7, No. 3

  Important but overlooked news from around the world.
  NYMHM is a free service of Newsdesk.org.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-----
  - Online this week: http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004521.html
  - RSS: http://newsdesk.org/news/atom.xml
  - Donations: http://artsandmedia.net/contribute/
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-----

QUOTED:

    "Documents we have refer to ways of increasing the number
    of 'YAUS' in Nigeria. We have expert testimony that says
    YAUS means 'young and underage smokers'."

    -- Nigerian lawyer Babatunde Irukera on a government lawsuit
    against tobacco companies there (see "Top Stories," below).

CONTENTS:

    *Top Stories*
      Boycotts cut into Myanmar gem auction
      Japan's health care crisis
      Nigeria's Smoke Out

    *Public Health*
      Transplant shortage hits ethnic minorities

    *Iran*
      Iran grapples with discrimination, division

    *Politics*
      Smells like team spirit

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-----
  TOP STORIES
........................................................................ 
.....

  > Boycotts Cut into Myanmar Gem Auction

    The Myanmar junta's repression of democracy protests last
    summer may have calmed the streets, but its harsh tactics
    have also robbed the state's gem trade of its lustre.

    Inter Press Service reports that Myanmar's gem auctions
    brought in $300 million in 2006, the state's third most
    profitable export after fossil fuels and timber.

    But in 2007, in the grips of numerous economic sanctions,
    bans and boycotts, gem earnings dropped to ...

    GET THE WHOLE STORY:

    http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004522.html

  > Japan's Health Care Crisis

    It is a leader of the industrialized world, a scientific
    and technological powerhouse with a robust economy, a
    vigorous democracy and guaranteed universal health care for
    all its citizens.

    Yet Japan increasingly struggles to make good on that
    promise, as hospitals, many of them privately owned, have
    begun shutting down their emergency wards due to ...

    GET THE WHOLE STORY:

    http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004523.html

  > Nigeria's Smoke Out

    Claims that international tobacco companies are targeting
    young people in Nigeria have spurred a $43 billion government
    lawsuit against Phillip Morris, British American Tobacco and
    and International Tobacco.

    Activists told The Guardian that the companies are targeting
    teenagers with marketing strategies that have banned in
    other nations, using sponsored events, pop stars and
    product placements to glamorize smoking.

    According to the World Health Organization, one in five
    Nigerian teenagers smoke, and the number of women ...

    GET THE WHOLE STORY:

    http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004524.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-----
  PUBLIC HEALTH
........................................................................ 
.....

  > Transplant Shortage Hits Minorities

    Doctors all over the world are having difficulty finding
    matching donors for bone marrow transplants - a lifesaving
    operation for certain very serious illnesses.

    And patients from ethnic minorities are the most at risk.

    Because the transplants are much more likely to succeed when
    they are between people of similar genetic backgrounds,
    physicians try to find donors from the same ethnicity as
    the patients.

    But, even in advanced nations, the pool of registered donors
    is relatively small, and ethnic minorities make up a small
    percentage of ...

    GET THE WHOLE STORY:

    http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004525.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-----
  IRAN
........................................................................ 
.....

  > Iran Grapples with Discrimination, Division

    Despite an ongoing crackdown on dissent, women's rights and
    ethnic separatism remain a thorn in the side of Iran's
    fundamentalist government.

    Reuters reports that the "Million Signatures Campaign,"
    aimed at improving the legal standing of Iranian women
    in divorce, child custody, inheritance and other cases,
    continues unabated despite the periodic jailing of its
    leaders.

    One Iranian cleric told Reuters that religious law ensures
    women there are not turned into "products" and sex symbols
    in the Western fashion.

    But according to campaigners -- who collect signatures on
    buses, in shopping centers and at social events -- the
    strict Islamic dress code is less important than ...

    GET THE WHOLE STORY:

    http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004526.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-----
  POLITICS
........................................................................ 
.....

  > Smells Like Team Spirit

    In what may be a first for political branding, a Spanish
    political party has begun marketing its own perfume.

    The Catalan Socialist Party unveiled the scent at a press
    conference Monday, with a spokesman saying that the perfume
    conveys the party's "confidence, equality, progress and
    efficiecy," according to the British newspaper The Guardian.

    The Guardian quoted the fragrance's creator, Albert Majos, as
    saying the product was "neither perfume nor air-freshener,"
    but a representation of socialism's ...

    GET THE WHOLE STORY:

    http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004527.html

======================================================================== 
=====
Editors: Will Crain, Josh Wilson
........................................................................ 
.....

SUPPORT PUBLIC-SERVICE MEDIA

Newsdesk.org and News You Might Have Missed are commercial-free, and
available at no charge. We welcome your tax-deductible contributions:
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=695

........................................................................ 
.....

MANAGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION

Subscribe, unsubscribe, etc:
http://lists.artsandmedia.net/mailman/listinfo/nymhm/

........................................................................ 
.....

News You Might Have Missed and Newsdesk.org are free services of
Independent Arts & Media: http://artsandmedia.net/

........................................................................ 
.....

E-mail list powered by Group D Communications:
http://www.groupd.com/

........................................................................ 
.....

DISCLAIMER: All external links are provided as informational resources
only, consistent with the nonprofit, public-interest mission of
Independent Arts & Media. Independent Arts & Media does not exercise
any editorial control over the information you may find at these
locations and does not have a copyright on any of the content located
at these sites.
======================================================================== 
=====