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News update
Mozart’s 250th birthday events drew record 1.2 million visitors
VIENNA: Mozart has a new record — and this one isn’t pressed into vinyl.
Organisers of last year’s series of festivals, exhibitions, concerts and conferences to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birth said the jubilee drew 1.2 million tourists to Austria — a record for a single festival.
Michael Haeupl, the mayor of Vienna — which hosted many events along with the composer’s birthplace of Salzburg — called the country’s 2006 birthday bash a resounding success.
“We didn’t make Mozart a kitsch, we didn’t bore people, and we made Mozart familiar to people who otherwise wouldn’t have remembered to do so themselves,” he said.
Chief Mozart year organiser Peter Marboe said the nearly 3,000 events were also a commercial success, bringing in euro15 million.
The anniversary year is still winding down and won’t be completed until the end of the month. Organisers said they expect the remaining festivities, which will culminate with a three-day festival at the end of January, to draw at least another 100,000 visitors.Millions more people in 50-plus countries worldwide held their own celebrations last year.
Because of the tremendous interest in classical music generated by the Mozart events, there are now plans to establish a European composers’ alliance to better promote more contemporary EU musical talents, Marboe said.—AP
More fast food meals mean more excess weight
NEW YORK: A new study provides the best evidence to date that eating fast food makes you fat.
Among nearly 3,400 young adults participating in a long-term study, every additional fast food meal they consumed each week correlated with a substantial increase in body mass index (BMI), Dr Barry M. Popkin of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and colleagues found.
“It’s a large effect,” Popkin told Reuters Health in an interview. “That’s enough of an effect to take you from being non-diabetic to diabetic.”
Food eaten away from home now accounts for up to 42 per cent of Americans’ calorie intake, Popkin and his team note in their report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. While the increase in restaurant and fast food consumption has occurred at the same time as the rise in obesity, they add, it’s not clear if it’s a contributing factor.
The more fast food the subjects ate, the higher was their BMI, Popkin and colleagues found.
However, the researchers found no association between meals eaten at traditional restaurants and increases in BMI; in fact, some analyses linked eating more often in restaurants to a slightly lower BMI.
The study confirms, Popkin said, that people who eat more fast food pack on more pounds. “People have been trying to say that, but they didn't have the kind of evidence that we have now.”—Reuters
Mystery odour remains a mystery
NEW YORK: Environmental officials in two states said they have given up hope of finding the source of a mysterious odor that swept across parts of the New York City area a week ago.
New Jersey officials said they checked out more than 140 industrial facilities in the northern part of the state to see whether they were responsible for the smell that drifted up the Hudson River on January 8.
The inquiry did not turn up any unusual emissions, said Elaine Makatura, a spokeswoman for the state's Department of Environmen-tal Protection.
New York City officials analyzed air samples taken when the smell lingered and also came up empty.—AP
Civil servants urged to walk to work
BEIJING: Civil servants in a Chinese city that is listed as one of the 10 most polluted in the world have been asked to walk to work in a bid to ease the environmental woes.
Lanzhou, the capital of China’s northwest Gansu province, has notoriously bad pollution due to high coal use for energy, heavy industrial emissions and its position in a valley that traps air, but also because of rising car use.
To help fight the problem, Lanzhou’s mayor has told civil servants they will have to leave their cars at home and walk to work on days when the pollution problems are particularly bad, the China Daily said, citing local officials.—AFP
Rescuers save trapped dolphins
EAST HAMPTON, New York: A group of animal welfare volunteers managed to help free several dolphins that had gotten trapped in a cove off Long Island, east of New York City.
Up to 40 dolphins became trapped in the shallow waters last week and six of the animals have already died after getting stranded on the coastline.
Around 50 volunteers in boats herded an estimated nine dolphins safely out to sea on Tuesday, but a handful remained trapped in the inlet. Volunteers suspended the rescue effort Tuesday due to the cold weather and choppy water but said they may continue their attempt to save the remaining dolphins later.—AFP
Cynthia, a Kodiak bear, carries a salmon given to her as a special treat on her 30th birthday at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, on January 17. Kodiak bears normally live between 15 to 30 years of age in the wild, but often live longer in captivity due to the abundance of food supplies and regular veterinary care.—AP
Oranges are covered in ice at a citrus orchard on January 16 in Fresno, California. An estimated 70 per cent of California’s citrus crops have been damaged by a severe cold snap that is bringing below freezing temperatures to California’s central valley and is expected to continue through January 21. A massive winter storm has covered swaths of the United States in a mantle of snow, sleet and ice, killing 42 people, threatening millions of dollars in citrus crops and leaving hundreds of thousands without electricity, officials said.—AFP
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