Fatter corpses a danger to morgues

MORE than two-thirds of Australians living outside major cities are overweight or obese, and extremely obese corpses are creating a safety hazard at morgues, according to two studies.

Nearly three quarters of men and 64 percent of women were overweight in a study of people in rural areas.

Just 30 percent of those studied recorded a healthy weight, said research published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

"Urgent action is required at the highest level to change unhealthy lifestyle habits by improving diet, increasing physical activity and making our environments supportive of these objectives," wrote the lead researcher, Professor Edward Janus.

The figures were much higher than for the general population, where statistics show about 3.2 million of Australia's 21 million people are obese.

Meanwhile, pathologists are calling for new "heavy-duty" autopsy facilities to cope with obese corpses that are difficult to move and dangerously heavy for standard-size trolleys and lifting hoists.

The bodies presented "major logistical problems" and "significant occupational health and safety issues", according to a separate study, which found the number of obese and morbidly obese bodies had doubled in the past 20 years.

Specially designed mortuaries would soon be required if the nation failed to curb its fat epidemic, providing "larger storage and dissection rooms, and more robust equipment", said Professor Roger Byard, a pathologist at the University of Adelaide.

"Failure to provide these might compromise the post-mortem evaluation of markedly obese individuals, in addition to potentially jeopardising the health of mortuary staff."

In the past year, there have also been requests for larger crematorium furnaces, bigger grave plots as well as super-sized ambulances, wheelchairs and hospital beds.

U.S. troops kill Iraq shrine bomber

BAGHDAD - U.S. troops killed the al-Qaida mastermind of the latest bombing at a prized Shiite shrine, and at least 13 people died when mortars rained down on their Baghdad neighborhood, officials said Sunday.

Haitham Sabah Shaker Mohammed al-Badri was the al-Qaida in Iraq emir of Salahuddin province, and the figure responsible for the June 13 bombing of the twin minarets at the Golden Dome mosque in Samarra, the U.S. military said in a statement. He died in a U.S. operation east of Samarra on Thursday, though his death was announced three days later.

"Al-Badri was positively identified by close associates and family members," the statement said.

Al-Badri had also been a suspect in an earlier bombing, in February 2006, which destroyed the same mosque's golden dome and set in motion an unrelenting cycle of retaliatory sectarian bloodletting.

Thirteen people were killed early Sunday morning and 14 wounded by mortar shells in southeast Baghdad, police said.

At least three mortars hit the Shiite-dominated Mashtal area in southeast Baghdad, a police officer said on condition of anonymity out of security concerns. It was unclear whether they were aimed at the area, or whether the shells fell short of their intended targeted.

Mashtal's main intersection, where the gas station is located, leads to other Shiite slums such as Kamaliyah, Fudailiyah, and Sadr City.

Police and witnesses said two of the mortar shells landed near a gas station where people were lining up for fuel at the start of the work week. Many of the victims were burned by fuel that burst into flames from the attack, the officer said.

AP Television News footage showed at least two cars with their windshields and windows shattered. The tail fin of a mortar shell was lodged in the ground nearby. Pools of blood soaked into the dusty ground outside crude cement block homes.

"Shrapnel hit my front window...then two explosions took place," said minibus driver Ali Abdul-Karim, 28. "Me and other drivers ran fast toward the sound of the explosions, to help evacuate the victims."

Abdul-Karim described a ghastly scene, with rescuers scurrying to discern the wounded from the dead.

"I saw two elderly women bleeding and laying on the ground. I don't know whether they were injured or dead," he said. "I also saw three seriously wounded boys laying near their jerry cans. A man was running and screaming, with his hands on his belly, which was cut by shrapnel."

The wounded lay bandaged on gurneys at a nearby hospital. Male relatives of the victims, many in clothes stained with their loved ones' blood, milled around outside the neighboring morgue, where at least eleven bodies were visible on metal shelves.

The Golden Dome — or, Askariya — shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, is one of the holiest places for Shiites. Despite heightened security put in place after the February 2006 bombing, suspected al-Qaida militants managed to infiltrate the compound and bring down its two minarets in June.

The first attack unleashed a bloodbath of reprisals — of Shiite death-squad murders of Sunnis, and Sunni bombing attacks on Shiites. At least 34,000 civilians died in last year's violence, the United Nations reported.

The second bombing, in June, toppled the two minarets — which for many Shiites, were symbols of resilience in the face of a tireless Sunni insurgency — and dealt a bold blow to hopes for reconciliation.

Also Sunday, the U.S. military announced the capture of three more suspected insurgents in raids two days earlier in the Samarra area.

On Friday, Iraqi soldiers backed by U.S. special forces advisers detained three people accused of roadside bombings in the area, the U.S. military said in a statement. One of the men was believed to be the al-Qaida in Iraq emir for the city, it said.

Several weapons and bomb-making materials were also confiscated, it said.

Meanwhile, Iraq's prime minister on Sunday rejected the resignation of Cabinet ministers from the country's largest Sunni Arab bloc, and asked the six ministers to rejoin his government.

Ministers from the Iraqi Accordance Front, which also holds 44 of parliament's 275 seats, quit Nouri al-Maliki's government on Wednesday. The move left only two Sunnis in the 40-member body, casting doubt on the government's "national unity" status and undermining the prime minister's efforts to unite rival factions and pass laws the U.S. considers benchmarks that could lead to sectarian reconciliation.

The Accordance Front said its decision to pull out of government was sealed by what it called al-Maliki's failure to respond to a set of demands: the release of security detainees not charged with specific crimes, the disbanding of militias and the participation of all groups represented in the government in dealing with security issues.

After meeting Sunday with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, the prime minister signaled he was not ready to give in completely to the Front's demands.

"We are not talking about meeting all of their demands. We have to deal with them according to our political program," al-Maliki said at a news conference at his office in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

But he said the three had "agreed to exert effort to bring the brothers of the Accordance Front back to their roles."

http://www.foliomag.com/

A Q&A With Hearst’s Ken Bronfin Thursday, August 02, 2007 By Bill Mickey

Ken Bronfin, president of Hearst’s Interactive Media division, talks with Folio: about his group’s investment strategy and how it fits in Hearst’s corporate structure.

Hearst recently purchased UGO.com, an online entertainment site that caters to the 18-34-year-old male demographic—a market that Hearst will be moving toward aggressively via non-traditional media. The operation will be placed under the Hearst Interactive Media division, a group within Hearst’s vast corporate structure that for the last 13 years has been responsible for investing in early-stage Internet companies, even acting as an incubator for small, entrepreneurial start-ups.

It’s a unique arrangement that gives Hearst an inside track on cutting-edge technology and puts them in a position to learn from, and sometimes acquire, an operation that could have a meaningful strategic impact on the company. It’s a division tangentially related to Hearst Magazines Digital Media, which oversees the development of Web properties tied to the company’s traditional media products.

Ken Bronfin, president of Hearst Interactive Media, spoke with Folio: about the company’s attraction to UGO.com and offered some insight into the purpose and investment strategies of his division.

Give us a little background on Hearst Interactive Media.
We were formed 13 years ago. I’ve been here about 11 years. We started off developing a number of our own Web businesses. One that emerged to be important through all of this was HomeArts.com. It was a women’s portal, and slowly but surely turned into a deal with Women.com, where we ended up owning that. That slowly morphed into a merger between Women.com and iVillage.com whereby we owned 1/3 of iVillage. Ultimately, we sold iVillage to NBC. That’s a big part of our history over the years.

A second part of what we’ve done is we’ve made strategic venture investments in a wide variety of companies—about 49 companies. And the purpose of that activity is of course to generate a financial return, but just as importantly to generate a strategic return, which is to get to know emerging Internet and early-stage businesses that we believe are changing the media landscape.

What kind of stake do you typically buy?
We’ve owned as little as one percent and as much as 40 percent of some of them. We’re typically on the board of directors of these companies and this gives us insight into what’s going on in the world of shaping interactive technology and media. And we are able to influence some of these industries and we’re able to learn from them. We take that learning and bring it across our company to help influence what the other interactive groups are doing. So it’s been an important and lucrative pursuit for us.

Would you say there’s more learning or more influencing going on?
Well, you always learn, but you don’t always influence. Sitting on the board of these companies has just been extraordinary for us. We’re an investor in a company called E Ink, which is creating electronic paper. You can decide whether you think that’s going to be important or not, but we certainly do from a newspaper and, ultimately, a magazine perspective. We’re a major investor and I happen to be chairman of the board. So, I think there’s a case where we’re not only learning but we’re influencing and we’re inspiring other parts of our company to think about what the future looks like in the world of mobile devices.

What are some other key areas in the market that you’re watching closely? Should publishers be interested in content or technology?
I think it’s both, and it’s the intersection of those. A key area of investment for us has been video. We’re an investor in a company called MobiTV, which delivers video content to phones. We’re an investor in Brightcove. The world is transitioning quickly to delivery of video through the Web so that’s a big area for us.

We’re an investor in companies around community and we care a lot about that. There’s a wide variety of things that are influencing the way that people watch and participate with content and that’s where we focus.

We also have a couple interesting ideas that we are growing internally as well, so it’s not just investing. We know a lot about getting companies started because we’ve watched it in the last 50 companies we’ve invested in. We actually have a start-up company living here in the building—I can’t tell you what they’re doing—but we have the ability to start up businesses and bring entrepreneurs in and do things. I’m not talking about in a highly structured corporate way, but it feels a little bit more like a start-up business that’s living within Hearst and is wholly owned by Hearst.

Are you investing in these companies with an eye toward buying them outright?
That is a part of the strategy. That’s not consistent across all businesses that we invest in. I don’t want to be an owner of E Ink, for example. That’s a pure technology company. But there are companies that are closer to home and there are content companies in our portfolio that would possibly make a lot of sense for us to own one day. So this is an opportunity for us to own a stake and watch the company grow.

Of course buying a company in the very early stages and taking it over is always a challenge. I think it can be done, but sometimes these companies are more ready for acquisition three or four years out, where these little entrepreneurial teams may not always do great within larger corporations. So we’re sensitive to that. It doesn’t always make sense for large companies to buy these little five and ten-person startups and try to bring them in.

Are there any patterns in how these companies are valued, either for acquisition or investment?
Acquisitions of good-sized companies, like the size of iVillage, are clearly marketed at certain multiples. So whether it’s About.com, Marketwatch or Shopzilla, these are all valued at multiples of EBITDA in the 20-something range. We go shopping and look for a variety of businesses that we think we can get a good price on. And so you haven’t seen us buy a major property like that, although UGO.com is a good sized property.

Is your group unique among companies such as yours?
In order to do what we’re doing, to invest, which is very cyclical, you have to have a lot of patience. You have to be in it for a long time. Our first investment was Netscape, that’s what got us started on all of this. You have to be the type of company that’s going to be able to live with these start-up companies and what goes on with them, the ups and downs. You can’t try to suffocate them. It takes some learning and I don’t know if all companies have the patience to do that, and as a private company we also have a privilege to invest meaningful amounts of money. Sometimes public companies don’t always have that privilege. Hearst has a very long-term view on developing its
business.
( from http://www.foliomag.com )