All Akcess

By Martin Patience
BBC News, Kabul

You do not have to go far out of Kabul to run into trouble pretty quickly.

Four years ago, Afghans – and foreigners – could drive the 300 miles or so from the capital to the southern city of Kandahar in relative safety.

But now, just beyond the outskirts of Kabul, the Taliban and other insurgents are operating.

And it is for that reason that US military commanders want more troops. They say the extra soldiers will help stabilise the security situation and train the Afghan army.

They hope that by protecting Afghanistan’s main cities and towns – then the Afghan government supported by the West – they can win over the population.

‘Bad idea’

But Afghans on the fringes of Kabul are sceptical about those plans.

I met Hayit Allah pushing a wheel-barrow close to his mud-wall compound. He was an elderly man with a wiry spryness, and still worked in the dusty fields with his four sons.

He told me that the security situation was good close to his village. But he said that just five minutes’ drive away, the villages were all Taliban-controlled.

But he was not worried about it, he said, and believed more foreign troops would be a bad idea.

His neighbour, Haji Rabat, was also a farmer. And he also thought that sending more US forces would be a big mistake.

"Every time the Americans send more troops they create more problems with us," he said. "The only way to resolve this conflict is to negotiate with the insurgents."

Back in Kabul, I met a group of young men at a local fast-food restaurant.

They were all in their mid-twenties with good jobs. All of them freely admitted they had opportunities now that would not have existed under the Taliban.

But they too had their doubts about any increase in foreign forces.

"It is not good to have more American troops in Afghanistan," said Idris, who works for a local non-governmental organisation involved in reconstruction projects.

"They don’t know much about our culture and they can’t communicate with the local people."

But Idris would support more troops if they focussed entirely on the training of the Afghan army.

His friend Jawed, however, believes that foreign forces are the source of Afghanistan’s insecurity.

"In the last eight years they have gained nothing," says Jawed, who also works for a non-governmental organisation.

"Day by day the security situation is getting worse. The Taliban is fighting the international forces and if they increase troop numbers then it will only get worse."

Jawed advocated a complete withdrawal of foreign troops but would like continued international support for the Afghan government.

Recipe for disaster

But many Afghans think that simply pulling out would be a recipe for disaster and that the country would descend into civil war.

Parts of Afghanistan have made real progress. In Kabul there are several thriving markets. And that would not be possible without the military, which provides the security, so normal life can go on.

But many Afghans still appear lukewarm about the prospect of more foreign soldiers arriving in their country.

One vegetable seller told me that he didn’t want foreign forces in the city because they drew suicide bomb attacks.

While it may appear ungrateful, it should be remembered that Afghan soldiers are fighting and dying here – in fact, they are bearing the brunt of the conflict.

Over a 1,000 members of the Afghan security forces were killed last year. That is a higher casualty rate than that of all the all foreign troops combined.

Mohammed Din knows the cost. I met him on a hill-side close to his home. His brother Mohammed Rabat, an officer in the Afghan army, was killed in a suicide-bomb attack last year.

We were supposed to meet in his home, but his parents are still so grief-stricken that they cannot bear to have their son’s name mentioned in their presence.

Mohammed believed that foreign troops should stay here.

"We want them until that time we have proper peace and security in our country," he said.

"For the moment we need them to fight together."

The Afghan army is making progress but will not be able to operate on its own for several more years.

And while most Afghans do not like having foreign troops in their country (and increasing numbers are fighting them), many know that they will have to depend upon them for a while longer.

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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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Barcelona and Argentina striker Lionel Messi has been named European Footballer of the Year to win the prestigious Ballon d’Or award.

French magazine France Football said that Messi beat last year’s winner Cristiano Ronaldo into second place by a massive margin – 473 points to 233.

Messi, 22, won the treble of Champions League, the Spanish championship and Spanish cup with Barcelona last season.

He also top-scored in the Champions League with nine goals.

One of them was in the defeat of Manchester United in the final in Rome.

Third and fourth place in the voting were Messi’s Barcelona team-mates, the midfielders Xavi (170 points) and Iniesta (149).

Striker Samuel Eto’o, who left Barcelona for Inter Milan during the close-season, was fifth.

The highest-placed English player was Wayne Rooney, who was eighth.

‘Fruitful year’

France Football said Messi was only seven points short of the maximum available from the 96 jurors.

The magazine quoted Messi as saying: "Honestly, I knew that I was among the favourites because Barcelona had a fruitful year in 2009.

"But I didn’t expect to win with such a margin. The Golden Ball is very important to me. All the players who won it were great players, and some great players never won it."

He added: "I dedicate it to my family. They were always present when I needed them and sometimes felt even stronger emotions than me."

Barcelona picked up Messi at an early age from the Newells Old Boys youth team.

Four years ago, Argentine football legend Diego Maradona, who has since become the national team manager, said Messi would be the player to take over his mantle as national hero.

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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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By Jane Dreaper
Health correspondent, BBC News

The French first lady says it is "unfair" that women and children in the developing world often miss out on treatment for HIV.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy spoke about her work as an Aids ambassador for The Global Fund to mark World Aids Day.

She wants to raise awareness about the plight of children who are HIV positive because the virus has been passed on from their mother.

She also cited British Prime Minister’s wife, Sarah Brown, as an inspiration.

"It is a position that gives so many open doors and so much interest from the media"

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

The Global Fund was set up to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria.

It receives donations from the governments of leading nations – including the UK.

At present, only about a third of pregnant women in Africa get tested for HIV.

And of those who have the virus, 45% get the drugs that will stop HIV being passed to their child during birth or breastfeeding.

That figure has improved five-fold in the past few years, but the hope is to wipe out this route of HIV infection by 2015.

In her ornate office at the Elysee Palace in Paris, I asked Ms Bruni-Sarkozy why she had chosen to work for this cause.

She said: "I find it very important that every woman expecting a child can make sure the child will have a healthy life.

"We do have the medicines. It’s just good sense.

"What motivates me is seeing the results this great work has.

"Children are born healthy and mothers don’t transmit the virus to the baby, when they have the medicine.

"It’s rather unfair that our babies in France and Europe can be born healthy, because the mothers can be treated."

Ms Bruni-Sarkozy, 41, is a former model and singer who married the French president in February 2008 after a whirlwind romance.

Brown’s lead

She took up her role as "ambassador for mothers and children against Aids" with the Global Fund a year ago.

Since then, she has visited hospital projects in Burkina Faso, in West Africa. She will visit Benin at the end of next month.

Ms Bruni-Sarkozy said Sarah Brown, had been "an example from the minute I met her" because of the "energy and strength" she brought to her work with the White Ribbon Alliance on trying to prevent deaths among women in childbirth.

On her role, Ms Bruni-Sarkozy said: "It is a position that gives so many open doors and so much interest from the media.

"I can talk about these women and children to the BBC – it’s fantastic!

"You can bring visibility to something that’s maybe been in the dark."

Complacency warning

The latest global projections suggest that the level of new HIV cases is easing off.

But the French first lady cautioned against complacency.

She said: "The danger is getting used to the HIV problem, and – especially for young people – thinking that because there are medicines, people are maybe not prudent enough.

"There is still no vaccine – at least not one that is useable yet. So that’s why World Aids Day is a really important day."

The Global Fund has received funding commitments worth $20bn since it was established in 2002.

Ms Bruni-Sarkozy is its only ambassador. The head of the Fund, Professor Michel Kazatchkine, says she has proved invaluable.

He said: "She brings a face and a voice for many people in the world who are voiceless and vulnerable.

"She has been tremendously helpful in increasing the visibility of the Global Fund.

"We are present in 140 countries and the major G8 countries contribute to our work – yet public opinion doesn’t know enough about the extraordinary changes and successes in the fight against these diseases."

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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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By Navin Singh Khadka
Environment reporter, BBC News

A scientific debate has been triggered over the state of glaciers in the Himalayas.

Some recent findings seem to contradict claims that the glaciers are retreating rapidly. Some glaciers are even said to be advancing.

There are clear signs of glacial retreat and ice melt from other parts of the world, but few field studies have been carried out in the Himalayas.

Its glaciers too were widely believed to be receding fast.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had said that Himalayan glaciers were receding faster than in any other part of the world.

The panel observed: "If the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate."

This report sparked concerns that there could be increased flooding in the short term, as glacial lakes suddenly overflowed.

In the longer term, major glacier-fed rivers, it was feared, would run dry, affecting millions in the region.

Glacial conflict

But some scientists claim that glaciers in the Himalayas are not retreating as fast as was believed. Others who have observed nearby mountain ranges even found that glaciers there were advancing.

Kenneth Hewitt, a glaciologist from Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, is one of these scientists. He has been doing field studies in Pakistan’s Karakoram Mountains at the western reaches of the Himalayan range for the last 40 years.

Just back from the that region, he told BBC News that he saw at least half a dozen glaciers that had been advancing since the last time he saw them – five years ago.

"Dozens of smaller, high altitude tributary glaciers have advanced including seven of Biafo Glacier and four of Panmah," he says.

"It means climate change is happening here too, but with different consequences."

Scientists have also described a phenomenon called glacial "surge". This is thought to be caused by melt water underneath the glacier lubricating its ground contact and causing it to move forward.

This is different from a real advance of a glacier, which is caused by an increase in the volume of ice.

"Rapid, surge-type advances have occurred in at least 17 glaciers since 1985, at least eight since 2000 [in the Karakoram]," says Dr Hewitt.

Out of date data

In the western Himalayas, some scientists have also reported findings that conflict with the long-held view that glaciers are retreating.

The Indian government has issued a discussion paper based on these findings.

It says: "Himalayan glaciers, although shrinking in volume and constantly showing a retreating front, have not in any way exhibited… an abnormal annual retreat, of the order that some glaciers in Alaska and Greenland are reported to have done.

"It is premature to make a statement that glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating abnormally because of global warming."

But noted Indian glaciologist Syed Iqbal Hasnain told BBC News that the data referred to in this paper are from the 1970s.

"I [was] asked to review the paper and clearly it does not reflect the current situation," he said.

"Things have changed in the last four decades."

Professor Hasnain has studied the Chhota Shigri glacier in Himachal Pradesh for four years and has found it to be retreating by 0.8m a year.

"(There is) no benchmark glacier in India which has been studied for many years," he says.

"Those that have been studied once or twice by some institutes are showing negative mass balance [or losing ice]."

He explained that precipitation and temperature were the main factors affecting whether glaciers retreat or advance.

All data, he says, show that precipitation is falling. And less precipitation means less accumulation of snow and ice.

In retreat

The gradual disappearance of glaciers is causing huge concern.

Indian newspapers recently reported that some glaciers were retreating alarmingly quickly in Indian-administered Kashmir.

In China, glaciologists have also repeatedly warned of glaciers in Tibet retreating significantly.

But some experts argue that these conclusions often come from studies carried out in the snouts of glaciers, and that they do not represent the complete picture.

Richard Armstrong, a glaciologist with Colorado University in the US who also works for Nasa, says: "Retreat at the local point of the terminus doesn’t describe what’s going on in the entire glacier system that involves thousands of metres of elevation difference."

"I do not know of any scientific study that supports a complete vanishing of glaciers in the Himalayas within this century"

Michael Zemp
World Glacier Monitoring Service

Having studied glaciers in the Nepalese Himalayas recently with the help of ground data and satellite imagery, Professor Armstrong said the upper air and surface station data indicated that above 5,400m there was no melting.

"It turns out [that] about half of the surface area of the glaciers that we studied in Nepal don’t experience melt at any time of year."

Another scientist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Dr Michael Bishop, echoed Professor Armstrong’s argument that the state of Himalayan glaciers was being overly generalised.

Dr Bishop has carried out glacier research funded by Nasa. He says: "Some people are making extrapolations based upon one or two glaciers.

"In the Himalayas, that can’t be done because of the influence of topography and climate dynamics."

But Professor Hasnain says that those who criticise the finding that glaciers are retreating are often researchers who never go into the field and who rely too heavily on satellite images.

"When you are measuring from 35,000km (22,000 miles) above, the data cannot be accurate and so there needs to be [verification on the] ground," he told BBC News. "But people don’t do that."

He says the argument that glaciers are not retreating remarkably is based on "flimsy ground".

Those who come to that conclusion, says Professor Hasnain, use Nasa’s data.

"But [the US space agency] itself says that its own data is quite [different] from the ground data. That is why it is willing to work with us," he says.

William Lau, who heads the atmospheric sciences branch at Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, says: "Nasa products are very useful in providing a broad picture of what is happening regarding the seasonal snow melt, and short term variations.

"[But] all satellite products have inherent uncertainties, and need to be calibrated and validated against ground observations.

Meanwhile, experts at the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), based in Zurich, Switzerland, say both in-situ measurements and remote sensing data are needed in order to get a complete image of glacier distribution and the changes throughout an entire mountain range.

Michael Zemp, a glaciologist at WGMS says: "There is a general centennial trend of glacier retreat from the moraines of the Little Ice Age (also) in the Himalayas."

But, he adds, "I do not know of any scientific study that supports a complete vanishing of [Himalayan] glaciers within this century."

The Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development has carried out some studies on glaciers.

It says that the general behaviour of the Himalayan glaciers is clear – overall they are currently in a state of rapid and substantial retreat.

"A few glaciers may be acting differently as a result of their different individual physical ‘character’," it adds.

It appears that the impact of climate change in the region could be far more complicated than previously thought.

And despite varying observations, experts do agree on one thing: there has to be an increased level of scientific observation to record the changes in Himalayan glaciers and make reliable predictions.

The absence of this data could make the issue of Himalayan glaciers a knotty one during the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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A woman’s genes are much more likely than lifestyle factors such as stress or diet to cause greying hair, a study suggests.

Unilever scientists studied more than 200 identical and non-identical Danish twin sisters aged between 59 and 81.

The scientists found little difference between the greyness of the identical twins – who share the same genes.

But there was more difference between non-identical twins, whose genes differ, the study found.

The study, published in the journal PLoS One, also suggests receding hair is linked to mainly genetic factors.

But it indicates hair-thinning on the top of the head is connected to environmental and lifestyle factors.

"Greying hair is not down to something you have done, but to genetic factors beyond your control"

Nina Goad
British Association of Dermatologists

On the issue of greying hair, lead researcher Dr David Gunn said although many theories had been put forward to explain different rates of greying, there was little hard scientific evidence to back them up.

He said: "This study offers us a fascinating insight into the reason why women go grey and it certainly suggests that environmental factors are not as important as we once thought.

"The research indicates that irrespective of how stressful a woman’s life is, there are greater forces at play which are more likely to cause her hair to grey."

Nina Goad, of the British Association of Dermatologists, said previous work had also found few identifiable environmental factors among people who went grey much earlier than their relatives.

"This means that for the majority of people, greying hair is not down to something you have done, but to genetic factors beyond your control, and that generally your lifestyle will not greatly impact on when your hair loses its colour," she said.

"There are of course exceptions to this rule."

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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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Returning England’s finest cathedrals to their former glory

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