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NEW YORK: It would seem logical for patients who have had a heart attack to cut back on fast food.

Some devoted fast food eaters do. But six months later, more than half can still be found at their favorite fast food places at least once a week, according to a study in the American Journal of Cardiology.

Of nearly 2,500 heart attack patients studied by John Spertus, at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, 884 -- or 36 percent -- reported in a survey while still hospitalized that they had eaten fast food frequently in the month before their heart attack. "Frequently" was defined as once a week or more.

When Spertus and his colleagues checked back six months later, 503 were still eating fast food every week.

"Fast food consumption by patients with AMI (acute myocardial infarction) decreased 6 months after the index hospitalization, but certain populations -- including younger patients, men, those currently working, and less educated patients -- were more likely to consume fast food, at least weekly, during follow-up," he wrote.

"Novel interventions that go beyond traditional dietary counseling may be needed to address continued fast food consumption after AMI in these patients."

But the study showed that older patients and those who had bypass surgery were more likely to be avoiding fast food six months later.

The survey did not ask what menu items people ordered, and some in the restaurant business have pointed out that fast food isn't always limited just to burgers and fries.

But Spertus and his colleagues pointed out that the people in their study who kept eating fast food tended to have health profiles "consistent with selection of less healthy options."

Nine out of 10 patients in the study received dietary counseling before they left the hospital, but this didn't seem to affect that odds that frequent fast food eaters would improve their diets, and Spertus said this showed they needed more education after leaving the hospital.

"The problem is that patients are absorbing so much information at the time of their heart attack, that I just don't think they can capture and retain all the information they're getting," he told Reuters Health.

MUMBAI: The Cricket World Cup 2011 has over shadowed Vishal Bharadwaj's latest presentation 'Saat Khoon Maaf' which was expected to lead the box office.

The film is a thriller, a dark comedy and comes riding on enticing trailers and promos.

However, the film, despite the presence of Priyanka Chopra in a notorious avatar, has received lukewarm response at the box office. The film has garnered mixed reviews from the critics but it hasn't transformed into box office success.

AHMEDABAD: Australia captain Ricky Ponting won the toss and elected to bat against Zimbabwe in their opening World Cup match here at the Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera on Monday.

This is the fourth match of the tournament and the third in Group A.

Australia, who are aiming to win the fifth title after emerging champions in 1987, 1999, 2003 and 2007, have not lost a match in the last two editions in South Africa and the West Indies under Ponting.

They have lost just one of their 27 one-day internationals against Zimbabwe, the defeat coming in the 1983 World Cup in England.

Teams:
Australia: Ricky Ponting (captain), Shane Watson, Brad Haddin, Michael Clarke, David Hussey, Cameron White, Steve Smith, Mitchell Johnson, Jason Krejza, Brett Lee, Shaun Tait.

Zimbabwe: Elton Chigumbura (captain), Charles Coventry, Regis Chakabva, Graeme
Cremer, Craig Ervine, Christopher Mpofu, Raymond Price, Tatenda Taibu, Brendan
Taylor, Prosper Utseya, Sean Williams.

SINGAPORE: Oil prices surged in Asian trade Monday, with Brent crude passing $103 as escalating tensions in Libya fuelled concerns over instability spreading across the oil-producing Arab states, analysts said.

Brent North Sea crude for April delivery jumped $1.13 to $103.65 per barrel, and New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, gained $1.17 to $87.37 in the afternoon.

"Both benchmarks have really zoomed ahead this morning. The main driver is really the unrest in the Middle East," said Victor Shum, senior principal for Purvin and Gertz energy consultants in Singapore.

He added that fresh violence in Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member state Libya was igniting fears of instability spreading throughout the key oil-supplying Middle Eastern and North African region.

"Libya is a member of OPEC and even though Libya's oil production isn't very significant on a global basis, it's really threatening close to the main suppliers of crude oil to the world, mainly Middle East and North Africa," Shum told AFP.

Intense gunfire was heard early Monday in the heart of the Libyan capital Tripoli and other quarters of the city as Saif al-Islam Kadhafi, the son of strongman Moamer Kadhafi, warned the nation was on the verge of civil war.

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court Monday confirmed death sentence of Ajmal Kasab who watched the proceedings via a video link and did not react after the judges delivered the verdict.

The court was to give its verdict in the appeal of the sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks against his conviction and death sentence.

Kasab, now 23, was convicted and sentenced to death last May for his part in the wave of attacks on India's financial capital by 10 militants which killed 166 people and injured more than 300 others.

State prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said on Sunday that he was "very confident" that the death sentence would be upheld.

One of Kasab's lawyers, Farhana Shah, added: "Inshallah (God willing), we hope for the best but it's up to the discretion of the honourable court."

Kasab was found guilty of a string of offences including waging war against India, murder, attempted murder and terrorist acts after a high-profile trial at a maximum security prison court in Mumbai.

The appeal, which began last October, saw Kasab's legal team ask for a retrial, arguing that his trial lawyer was not given sufficient time to wade through the 11,000-page charge sheet before the case began.

They also claimed that prosecution evidence and witnesses were manipulated.

Under Indian law, death sentence cases have to be referred to the local state high court. The judges can uphold the sentence, reduce it, order a retrial or overturn the conviction.

If a death sentence is upheld in the high court, there is a further right of appeal to the Supreme Court in New Delhi and as a last resort to India's president for clemency.

The court upheld the acquittal of two Indians Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin. The state had appealed against the acquittal of the pair who was accused of providing hand-drawn maps of potential targets to the gunmen.

The trial judge rejected the prosecution evidence against them as flimsy.

Kasab has been held in solitary confinement since his arrest in a shoot-out with police just hours after the attacks began. He has not attended the appeal for security reasons but has been able to follow proceedings via video link.

SYDNEY: Vancouver topped the list of the world's most liveable cities for the fifth straight year, while Melbourne claimed second place from Vienna and Australian and Canadian cities dominated the list's top 10 spots.

In the annual survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the Canadian west coast city and 2010 Winter Olympics host scored 98 percent on a combination of stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure - a score unchanged from last year.

It has topped the list from 2007.

Although Melbourne pipped the Austrian capital for silver medal, there was no other major change near the top of the list of 140 cities worldwide. Auckland, New Zealand, came in 10th.

"Mid-sized cities in developed countries with relatively low population densities tend to score well by having all the cultural and infrastructural benefits on offer with fewer problems related to crime or congestion," said Jon Copestake, editor of the report, in a statement.

Pittsburgh was the top US city with 29th place - just ahead of Honolulu -- while Los Angeles moved up three places to 44th and New York held onto the 56th spot.

London moved up one place to 53rd while Paris came in at number 16.

The top Asian city was Osaka at number 12, tying Geneva, Switzerland and beating out the Japanese capital of Tokyo, which came in at 18.

Hong Kong came in at 31 but Beijing, capital of the world's most populous nation and No. 2 economy, straggled in at 72.

There was also little change at the bottom, with Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, once again claiming the worst position with a rating of 37.5 percent, narrowing beating out the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka.

The Economist Intelligence Unit survey ranks cities based on 30 factors such as healthcare, culture and environment, and education and personal safety.

Following is a list of the top 10 most liveable cities as ranked by The Economist Intelligence Unit:
1. Vancouver, Canada
2. Melbourne, Australia
3. Vienna, Austria
4. Toronto, Canada
5. Calgary, Canada
6. Helsinki, Finland
7. Sydney, Australia
8. Perth, Australia
8. Adelaide, Australia
10. Auckland, New Zealand
The bottom 10 cities were:
1. Harare, Zimbabwe
2. Dhaka , Bangladesh
3. Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
4. Lagos, Nigeria
5. Algiers , Algeria
6. Karachi, Pakistan
7. Douala, Cameroon
8. Tehran, Iran
9. Dakar, Senegal
10. Colombo, Sri Lanka

The mounting pressure from 18 days of historic protests finally drove Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from office, after three decades as his nation's iron-fisted ruler. But over that time, Mubarak amassed a fortune that should finance a pretty comfortable retirement. The British Guardian newspaper cites Middle Eastern sources placing the wealth of Mubarak and his family at somewhere between $40 billion and $70 billion. That's a pretty good pension for government work. The world's richest man--Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim--is worth about $54 billion, by comparison. Bill Gates is close behind, with a net worth of about $53 billion.

Mubarak, of course, was a military man, not a businessman. But running a country with a suspended constitution for 30 years generates certain perks, and Mubarak was in a position to take a slice of virtually every significant business deal in the country, from development projects throughout the Nile basin to transit projects on the Suez Canal, which is a conduit for about 4 percent of the world's oil shipments. "There was no accountability, no need for transparency," says Prof. Amaney Jamal of Princeton University. "He was able to reach into the economic sphere and benefit from monopolies, bribery fees, red-tape fees, and nepotism. It was guaranteed profit."

Had the typical Egyptian enjoyed a morsel of that, Mubarak might still be in power. But Egypt, despite a cadre of well-educated young people, has struggled as an economic backwater. The nation's GDP per capita is just $6,200, according to the CIA--one-seventh what it is in the United States. That output ranks 136th in the world, even though Egypt ranks 16th in population. Mubarak had been working on a set of economic reforms, but they stalled during the global recession. The chronic lack of jobs and upward mobility was perhaps the biggest factor driving millions of enraged Egyptian youths into the streets, demanding change.

Estimates of Mubarak's wealth will probably be hard to verify, if not impossible (one reason dictators tend not to make it onto Forbes's annual list). His money is certainly not sitting in an Egyptian vault, waiting to be counted. And his delayed exit may have allowed Mubarak time to move money around and hide significant parts of his fortune. The Swiss government has said it is temporarily freezing any assets in Swiss banks that could be linked to Mubarak, an uncharacteristically aggressive move for the secretive banking nation. But that doesn't mean the money will ever be returned to the Egyptian people, and it may even find its way to Mubarak eventually. Other Mubarak funds are reportedly sitting in British banks, and Mubarak was no doubt wily enough to squire away some cash in unlikely places. Plus, an eventual exile deal could allow Mubarak to retain some of his wealth, no questions asked, as long as he and his family leave Egypt and make no further bids for power.

Epic skimming is a common privilege of Middle Eastern despots, and Mubarak and his two sons, Gamal and Alaa, were a bit less conspicuous than some of the Saudi princes and other Middle Eastern royals seen partying from time to time on the French Riviera or other hotspots. The family does reportedly own posh estates in London, New York, and Beverly Hills, plus a number of properties around the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El Sheikh, where Mubarak reportedly went after resigning the presidency.

Mubarak also spread the wealth far and wide in Egyptian power circles--another Middle Eastern tradition--one reason he incurred the kind of loyalty that allowed him to rule for a remarkable three decades. Top Army officials were almost certainly on his payroll, which might help explain why the Army eased him out in the end--allowing a kind of in-country exile--instead of hounding him out of Egypt or imprisoning him once it was clear the tide had turned against him for good.

RAWALPINDI: Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Rawalpindi has issued non-bailable arrest warrant of former President Gen Pervaz Musharraf (retd) in Benazir Bhutto assassination case, Geo News reported on Saturday.

ATC-III judge Rana Nisar issued the order while hearing in Adiala Jail.

FIA presented an interim charge of the case in which statements of former DG National Crisis Cell and IB Chief were recorded and Musharraf was declared nominated accused.

ROME: If you live in Italy and if the barking of your dogs keeps the neighbors up at night, it's you who might wind up caged -- in a jail cell.

The top appeals court sentenced four people in Sicily to two months in jail because they refused to keep their 10 dogs quiet at night despite complaints from neighbors who had repeatedly picked a bone with the owners over lost sleep.

The four were also ordered to pay court charges and a fine of 500 euros ($684) each. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has finally kicked his craving for the odd cigarette -- and his wife Michelle is "very proud" the former puffer-in-chief can look his kids in the eye and say he doesn't smoke.

Obama's struggle to beat his addiction has been a subject of inordinate fascination for the US press, throughout his barnstorming 2008 campaign and in the first two years of his presidency.

But First Lady Michelle Obama told reporters Tuesday that the president had not had a drag for about a year and said she was "very proud" he had succeeded in what had been a "personal challenge for him," USA Today reported.

Michelle Obama said she had not repeatedly bugged Obama about quitting -- all while doing one of the world's most stressful jobs.

"When somebody's doing the right thing, you don't mess with them," she said according to USA Today, adding that Obama had finally stopped lighting up because he wanted to tell his daughters Malia and Sasha he did not smoke.

The first lady was talking to reporters to mark the anniversary of her "Let's Move" campaign to end childhood obesity.

Obama had been urged by his doctor in February last year to stop smoking for good after his first health check-up as president, when he was otherwise found to be in "excellent health" and "fit for duty."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that several of Obama's closest aides had joined the president in his effort to wean himself off tobacco, and added he was sure the first lady's influence had helped.

LOS ANGELES: Prince William's bride-to-be, Kate Middleton, has de-throned Lady Gaga as the top fashion buzzword for the fashion season that starts in New York on Feb 10, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

Middleton, 29, who will marry the British prince on April 29 in London, soared as a fashion icon in November after the blue dress by designer Daniella Issa Helayel that she wore for the official engagement announcement sold out of stores within 24 hours.

Speculation is now rife in the fashion world over who will design Middleton's wedding dress, and what it will look like.

A survey by the Texas-based Global Language Monitor of fashion buzz words and phrases in print, on the Internet, and in social media, ranked Middleton the No.1. word for the upcoming season.

Singer Lady Gaga, known as much for her striking outfits as her hit records, was pushed into second place in the annual survey.

"Sheer" -- the trend for translucent fabrics -- came in third place, followed by "shirt dresses," and "sustainable style," reflecting a growing trend of clothing made of recycled fabrics.

New York fashion week starts on Feb 10, kicking off an international calendar of shows that includes London, Milan and Paris.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's trade deficit narrowed to $1.11 billion in January, from $1.63 billion a year earlier, the Federal Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.

The trade deficit was $1.62 billion in December 2010.

Exports totalled $2.32 billion in January, against $1.68 billion a year ago, according to the bureau's data.

Imports totalled $3.44 billion, up from $3.32 billion in January last year.

The country's trade deficit for the first seven months of the 2010/11 fiscal year (July-June) was $9.31 billion, compared with a $8.53 billion deficit in the same period a year earlier.

WASHINGTON: Astronomers have spotted a strange new solar system with small "puffy" planets packed in close orbit to their sun.

And an orbiting space telescope has pointed scientists to more than 1,200 other possible exoplanets -- planets outside our own solar system -- the space agency NASA said on Wednesday.

The solar system discovery, published in the journal Nature, is mystifying astronomers for the time being and illustrates just how much variety is possible in the universe.

The team at NASA and a range of universities has named the system Kepler-11, after the orbiting Kepler space telescope that spotted it.

"One of the most striking features about the Kepler-11 system is how close the orbits of the planets are to one another," they wrote in their report.

The star resembles Earth's own sun. But five of the planets orbiting it are packed into a space equivalent to the distance between Mercury and Venus in our own solar system.

And they are bigger and puffier than the rocky inner planets of our solar system, Earth, Venus, Mars and Mercury, the scientists said. However, they are some of the smallest exoplanets ever seen.

"They are much more closely packed ... than any other planetary systems known, including our own," said Jack Lissauer, a scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California.

"It is clear that such planets need not resemble the Earth in any way," Jonathan Fortney of the University of California, Santa Cruz, added in a telephone briefing. "The low-mass planets in the Kepler-11 system appear to be more like small Neptunes than giant Earths."

Neptune, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus are the giant gassy planets that orbit beyond Mars.

LOOKING FOR LIFE

Astronomers have now found more than 500 exoplanets. Most are giant, because they are so far away that only the biggest are detectable.

Kepler, launched in March 2009, is measuring the light from 150,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus and Lyrae. The hope is to find planets about the size and composition of Earth, inside the so-called habitable zone, where it is warm enough for liquid water to exist but not too hot for life.

"We have found over twelve hundred candidate planets -- that's more than all the people have found so far in history," William Borucki of Ames Research Center told a separate news briefing.

"Now, these are candidates, but most of them, I'm convinced, will be confirmed as planets in the coming months and years."

No telescope is powerful enough to directly visualize a planet orbiting another star. Instead, scientists use indirect means to find them.

Kepler measures the light coming from a star. A planet passing in front of the star as it orbits will dim this light just slightly. The researchers can then compute the planet's size and how quickly it is orbiting from this information.

In the latest discovery, the flickering light suggests a system of at least six planets, spinning rapidly around the star. One is orbiting farther out than the other five but they all appear to be made mostly of gas and orbiting in a very flat, circular plane.

SINGAPORE: World oil prices extended gains in Asian trade Thursday, with the unfolding political crisis in Egypt keeping the market jittery over fears about a wider fallout in the Middle East.

The standoff escalated into violence Wednesday after supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak clashed with protesters demanding the veteran leader's ouster in running battles that left hundreds injured

New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for March, climbed 47 cents to $91.24 in Asian morning trade.

Brent North Sea crude for March was up 22 cents to $102.56.

"The unfolding of the situation in Egypt has injected a burst of volatility and uncertainty into oil markets," Barclays Capital analysts said in a client note.

While Egypt is not a major crude producer, the country is home to the Suez Canal, which carries about 2.4 million barrels daily, roughly equal to Iraq's output.

Since the outbreak of unrest in Egypt more than a week ago, oil prices have risen on fears of disruption to the artificial waterway that links the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.

"The situation introduces risks and uncertainties that are likely to be highly significant in terms of the broader political evolution of the region," analysts at Barclays Capital said.

Phil Flynn at PFGBest described the situation as "an uneasy calm."

"Oil shipments through the Suez Canal have not been impacted but tanker rates may still rise," he said.

Oil prices were climbing despite data showing weak demand in the United States, the world's biggest oil consumer.

The US government's latest weekly stockpiles report showed supplies were still growing.

US crude oil reserves increased sharply for the third week in a row, the US Department of Energy said. Crude oil stocks rose 2.6 million barrels to 343.2 million in the week ending January 28, in line with expectations.

At the almost-full depot at Cushing, Oklahoma, reserves rose by 600,000 barrels to 38.3 million.

One of the most essential intimate apparel items in a woman's collection is the perfect strapless bra; however, I warn that there are proper and improper ways to effectively and stylishly wear a strapless bra this season.

Many women believe the strap must be hidden; however, this can not be further from the truth. In fact, new trends exist to both hide and flaunt the bra strap this summer. Summer fashions are revealing a lot of skin and it is important to be decisive in whether you show your bra straps or not. Beyond the traditional strapless bra, there are some trendy decorative straps that can really accentuate the dress or shirt and make a fashion statement.

Porphura offers a variety of jeweled straps that are interchanged with a bra's removable straps. Recently, we had a client who was preparing for her son's wedding in Florida. She was wearing a St. John dress and we added decorative straps featuring crystals and it really added to the way the dress appeared. The crystal straps were very attractive and gave the dress an entirely different look.