Daily Archives: January 9, 2022

Millions of people could starve to death in Afghanistan this winter.

Two Philadelphians are trying to prevent that from happening.

This is a campaign for humanity, said Naser Shahalemi, 42, a Kabul-born, University City businessman who helps lead a new and burgeoning awareness campaign, End Afghan Starvation. Twenty years we were helping them, and now were not helping them?

He and Gulmakai Popal Saleh, 44, a childrens book author in Northeast Philadelphia, started and lead a movement thats gained supporters across the globe, spread across the internet, and generated demonstrations in three cities. Nearly 10,000 people have signed online petitions pleading for U.S. action to avoid a humanitarian disaster.

Why Philadelphia as a starting point?

Things spark up in Philly, Shahalemi said. He and Saleh, both Afghan Americans who immigrated here as children, decided they had to act as they saw a crisis developing.

Afghanistan has long been beset by malnutrition. But now its being racked by a convergence of drought, war, poverty, unemployment, and pandemic thats wiped out crops and cut off international aid.

More than half the population, 22.8 million people, face severe hunger, according to U.N. analyses, and more than 8.7 million of those are nearing famine.

The billions of dollars in aid that flowed to the U.S.-backed Afghan government vanished when the country fell to the Taliban in August. Subsequent American economic sanctions have limited Afghanistans access to global financial markets and left humanitarian organizations unable to pay workers, buy supplies, and distribute food.

The Biden administration moved to exempt aid groups from the sanctions shortly before Christmas, but its unclear whether that will be sufficient to forestall famine.

Part of the challenge is political the Biden administration risks being seen as supporting the Taliban if it provides assistance.

End Afghan Starvation calls on the administration to ignore political concerns and get food to hungry people, mounting Twitter storms under the hashtag #endafghanstarvation.

The group seeks no monetary donations, noting that funding for food programs already is being sought and collected by groups that include the World Food Programme, International Rescue Committee, UNICEF, and Action Against Hunger.

More than 4,100 people have signed a petition that urges immediate action, to be submitted to the Biden administration, the United Nations, the European Union, and the United Kingdom governments.

For Gods sake, please help Afghans meet their basic needs! wrote one signer, Shahla Sadiq of McKinney, Texas, near Dallas. Each one of us knows what its like to be hungry for a couple of hours and not be able to eat, never mind not having the food!

A similar petition by Just Foreign Policy, a Washington-based reform group, has drawn 5,300 signatures.

Particularly vulnerable this winter are three million Afghans who have been internally displaced, that is, forced by war and violence to flee their homes but not to leave their homeland.

An estimated 50,000 fled to the capital of Kabul a city higher than Denver in elevation where winter temperatures often fall below zero at night. Many will spend the winter in makeshift shelters or unheated rooms, according to the U.N. High Commission on Refugees.

Roughly 3.2 million Afghan children under age 5 are acutely malnourished,according to UNICEF, and an estimated 1.1 million could die. Many mothers struggle to breastfeed because they themselves are undernourished.

This week End Afghan Starvation intends to reach out to the 40-some House Democrats who called on Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to unfreeze Afghanistans bank reserves. The lawmakers say that continuing to enforce international restrictions on Afghanistans banking system risks economic pain and humanitarian collapse.

Were American citizens, Saleh said. At the same time we care about our people, the place we were born.

The author of four childrens books is the founder and director of the Golden Tree of Goodness, which seeks to promote kindness through reading and encourages children to follow the golden rule.

She came to the United States at age 4 in 1981, two years after the Soviet invasion. Last month she helped gather speakers for a rally outside the White House, as similar demonstrations against hunger took place in London and Vienna.

Were getting phone calls from around the world, she said. The support is growing. Were uniting, regardless of what ethnic group or religion you belong to.

Shahalemi, a business consultant who arrived in this country at age 1 in 1980, said action is needed now, as winter snows threaten to cut off remote areas of Afghanistan.

Were speaking up for the defenseless children of Afghanistan. Every day, another child could die.

For more information, or to contact the organizers, visit endafghanstarvation.org.

See the article here:

Millions face starvation in Afghanistan. Two Philadelphians are trying to stop it. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Navarro is the assistant editor for The San Diego Union-Tribune en Espaol. She lives in Tijuana.

Like many binational kids in our CaliBaja region, I grew up in Tijuana, believing in Santa Claus and singing carols in English and Spanish, eating spicy tamales and turkey with gravy. And while my White friends will usually take down their holiday decorations right after Christmas, in my house everything stays the same until Jan. 6. Im sure that Im not the only one who follows the unwritten tradition: For Mexicans, the holidays go from Dec. 12, on the Day of the Virgen de Guadalupe feast, to Jan. 6, the Epiphany a time frame that even has its own name, el maratn Guadalupe-Reyes.

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For many Latino families, on both sides of the border, the Da de Reyes on Jan. 6 is the last day of the season to celebrate and cherish the joy with your loved ones, and it is also the last chance to bring gifts to the little ones while celebrating an important date in our faith. The story in the Bible describes three wise men who visited Jesus after his birth, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They symbolize the first gentiles converted to Christianity. Even now, the kings are always present on my moms nativity ornaments, el nacimiento. I remember them in my grandmas decorations: Melchior, a white-skinned and golden bearded king riding a camel; Gaspar, with an Arabic look, riding a horse; and Balthazar with dark skin, riding an elephant. All three men wore fine capes and jeweled crowns. I also remember how my grandma use to play with the three figurines when I was a kid.

First, she would place them away from the nativity manger, and every day she would move them, so they could walk closer to the nativity scene. There are different traditions associated with the Three Kings Day. The first one has to do with presents. Before going to sleep, on Jan. 5, the children place one shoe near the nativity decorations or next to a window, so they can collect a gift from the wise man the following morning. Then there is food, just like in any other celebration. Before the date, and on Jan. 6, we drink hot chocolate, champurrado (a thick drink made of corn masa and Mexican chocolate, with or without milk) or coffee while eating the rosca de Reyes. The sweet bread, shaped like a wreath and decorated with nuts and fruits, represents the kings crowns and another biblical passage. Inside each rosca, the baker hides a tiny baby figure that represents the hiding of baby Jesus from King Herods troops. On larger roscas, there are several babies hidden.

Most recently, the baby has morphed into popular figures, like Grogu (aka Baby Yoda) and many other characters. Also, the extravagant and exquisite cuisine of our region innovates every year, offering a wide variety of roscas on both sides of the border. From the classic sweet bread that you can find for cheap at any Hispanic market to gourmet creations from exclusive bakeries and upscale prices stuffed with cream cheese, chocolate, cajeta (dulce de leche) or fruits. For those on a special diet, a quick search on social media can lead them to specialty places where its possible to order vegan and gluten-free choices.

Once you choose your rosca, you should know that, at least in my house, there is one rule to obtain your piece of that special cake: no one else can cut your piece of rosca, because if you touch it, the baby is yours. And of course, there is a golden rule: If your piece of bread has the baby figure, then you must serve tamales the following month, on Feb. 2. Some say that receiving the baby is a symbol of good luck, others that it is just an excuse to keep partying with your loved ones, with more champurrado and tamales. No matter on what side of the border you celebrate the Epiphany, this will be the last day of this seasons holidays. After this day, its fine to remove the Christmas decorations and start working out to lose those extra holiday pounds. Because if you eat rosca, tamales will be back next month!

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Opinion: For many Latino families the holidays arent over until the Epiphany - The San Diego Union-Tribune

January is the time of the year when many try to shed extra Christmas pounds and get fighting fit for the year ahead.

But it's not always straightforward, maybe you hate the gym, love eating lots of food or are just generally lazy.

However, if you are looking for advice, Irish Mirror sports reporter Gavin Quinn, 24, has you covered.

Gavin lost five stone in just seven months without once going to the gym - here's how he did it, from his diet to level of exercise.

I lost 70 pounds (32 kg or five stone) in seven months after deciding to make a change in October 2020.

Tipping the scales at around 17 stone, I wasn't massively overweight but I'd noticed a gradual increase since I was a teenager that was accelerated by the initial Covid-19 lockdown.

I looked into what I was eating and slowly turned around my diet and found cycling as a great way to get active to compliment the changes I'd made.

By Christmas I had lost over two stone and I kept it up in the new year before hitting the five stone mark in May 2021.

After getting down to 12 stone (just over 76 kg), I was happy enough to ease off and work on fitness goals rather than focus on my weight.

For some people it's an epiphany moment like a favourite shirt no longer fitting them or seeing an old picture and noticing a big difference.

But for me it was just a culmination of all the right things, I don't have any overriding reason for making a change.

At the time Ireland was staring at another Covid-19 lockdown - which incidentally lasted almost the entire seven months of my journey barring the weeks before Christmas.

I'd tried almost all of the 'fad diets' to no avail in the months and years before, and I could just feel my confidence was at an all-time-low.

And on October 4, a Sunday morning, I said to myself that I need to make a change and that day would be day one.

The first thing I tackled was my eating and sleeping habits.

My working hours would often see me work mornings one week and evenings the next, so I'd struggled with establishing a structure to my diet and often just ate with no thoughts on how much I was eating and what kind of food.

I gave myself a simple plan to start off with - get eight hours sleep as often as possible and have three meals a day at roughly the same time.

When it comes to weight loss, on paper the simplest way to think about it is creating a calorie deficit - if you burn more calories than you consume each day then you will lose weight.

Of course it takes a lot of planning and preparation to follow a strict calorie deficit, but I set myself a rough target of 2,000 daily calories and used apps such as MyFitnessPal to help track what I was eating.

Initially I didn't pay too much attention to my macro-nutrients but made an effort to ensure I was drinking plenty of water, eating foods with high fibre, vitamins and lower fat counts - particularly saturated fats.

On my first day I had no grand plan or target weight to reach.

But Christmas provided a perfect landing point, and I set myself the target of losing two stone (12.7 kg) before the Christmas break.

A huge goal can often make the task of losing weight seem like an upward battle, so if you can take it step by step and set attainable goals.

Gyms are great, but they're not for everybody.

Personally, I never took to the gym when I was younger and always liked to exercise as a means of engaging in a sport or activity.

Gyms can be intimidating if you've never become a member, but I'd suggest anybody looking to get active consider it.

For me, I found a means to exercise in cycling - which has grown into somewhat of a passion for me over the past 15 months.

I spoke about this in greater detail with online health coach Cillian McCahey on The Confidence Code podcast.

It can be difficult to follow a calorie deficit, when you're consuming less calories than you're burning your body is being forced to eat into fat reserves to fill that void.

I made sure not to overdo it - deliberately eating just 1,000 calories per day can be too much and you could risk reverting back to old ways.

Having my breakfast and lunches at very similar times (9-10 am for breakfast and 1-2 pm for lunch) helped build early eating habits that would set me up for the day.

Again to ensure I wasn't completely flipping my diet completely I used a degree of leniency when it came to dinner time, small changes like portion control and avoiding fatty foods when you have the option can make all the difference.

Initially I found myself eating a lot of the same foods I already had, particularly snacks, but doing so meant I'd simply be eating less of what I used to rather than eating right.

After the first week I began replacing some snack foods with lower calorie snacks, which in turn meant I had more calories to play with for my substantial meals.

If I was eating a pack of 200 calorie crisps, I'd replace them with 100 calorie crisps, swap the Cadbury chocolate bars for lower calorie rice cake bars, treating myself to a zero calorie fizzy drink rather than a full sugar alternative.

This meant I still had treats and snacks to enjoy, but the small changes slowly begin to add up and the 2,000 calories I consumed each day began to feel like more and more as the days and weeks went by.

Some days it was 1,700 calories and other days it was 2,200 calories - don't beat yourself up over going over your allowance every once in a while.

It's not about cutting yourself off from food, but rather improving your relationship with food.

I've found so many great foods the past 15 months that I never enjoyed before, and I'd be confident in saying my relationship with food has really grown as I became more aware of what I was putting into my body.

Here's some of my favoured foods these days:

Cous Cous: I sometimes use it as a lighter alternative to rice, it's easy to make and is high in carbohydrates and fibre.

Rice crispy bars: Excellent for a quick snack, they're a lot better than a bar of chocolate.

Lentil curls: A low calorie alternative to many brands of crisps, I've grown to love them.

Nuts and seeds: A great snack, good source of protein and fats.

Turkey burgers: Lean, high in protein and delicious - no explanation needed.

Vegetables: Whatever they are eat plenty of them, they're good for you and should be an essential pillar of your diet.

Not really.

We've always had a 'Takeaway Friday' at home so I made sure to allow myself the Friday treat. Although instead of chips in the chinese takeaway some weeks I'd get rice or even eat a smaller portion.

I initially gave up alcohol until Christmas, but when I did drink I opted for lower calorie light beers or spirits more often than not instead of calorie-dense lagers or stout.

Everybody needs support when undertaking such a big change.

Whether that be a personal trainer, or just a family member or close friend, I'd recommend you get someone on board to be there for support.

In my case, I asked a close friend to act almost like my 'coach' to keep me honest. He would get in touch every now and then to see how I was getting on, was there to listen if I had problems and cheer me on to my goals.

Needless to say that educated professionals are much more qualified to play such a role, but having someone to bounce off and hold you accountable on the journey is essential.

Yeah, I came pretty close on November 1.

I was making good progress in the weeks before but that morning I weighed in after a particularly tough week and had lost just one pound.

In hindsight losing a pound in a week is a good achievement, but that week had been so difficult and the loss was a lot lower than I was expecting.

I was agitated and questioning what I was doing for hours before I was convinced to take an hour to go on a short cycle to clear my mind.

If I hadn't walked out to get some headspace I would've broken and dialled back weeks of progress, especially since I'd already been fully committed to nearly a month.

If you're about to give in - take a step back and remember why you're doing it.

Some days you just wake up and the same motivation you initially had just isn't there - it'll happen to everybody.

Of course motivation is great, but it comes and goes. Behind the motivation you do need to have a certain amount of discipline.

It can be very tough but you need discipline for when the inspiration and motivation just isn't there.

Weekly goals can help keep you focused.

The real goal wasn't to get down to a certain weight or number, it was to feel good and take back some confidence that I'd probably lost.

I started to notice a difference in how I looked around Christmas time (two months in), but had already felt better after about 10 days or so.

I tipped the scales initially every week but increased that to twice weekly to avoid any discouraging fluctuations.

Weighing yourself can be a good way of mapping out progress, but it's not the most important.

If you're not getting the expected results one week, don't get discouraged, it's important to make sure to keep doing the right things - the results will come.

Quite important.

I found a passion in cycling during my weight loss journey, but any form of exercise can give you similar results. Some people like running, walking, playing certain sports or of course the gym.

It really doesn't matter what your form of exercise is, if you have a healthy and balanced diet then exercise is your best friend.

Think of it as a complimentary relationship, the old saying of you cant out-exercise a bad diet can also be true for having a healthy diet but sitting on the couch all day.

As little as a walk in the park, a short hike, leisurely bike ride or a dip in the sea can compliment whatever calories deficits you're creating and help you reach your goals faster.

But if you are taking on more rigorous exercise, it's important to ensure you aren't creating too large of a deficit and are re-fuelling adequately.

Everyone has their golden rules for weight loss, and although these particularly rules won't work for everyone, here's a couple of mine:

- Calorie deficit: If you create a daily calorie deficit, you will lose weight. It's simple when you break it down like that.

- Always treat yourself: It's not about burning your bridges with certain foods, it's about improving your relationship with food.

- Take your time: There's no rush, everyone's bodies are different and once you're moving in the right direction that's all that matters.

- Find your support network: Find someone to keep you on the right path and hold you accountable in the long run.

- Exercise: Doesn't matter what it is, get out there and get active.

- Listen to your body: If you're hungry, eat something. If you're over-exercising, rest.

If you were to take one thing from reading this, it would be my real golden rule.

Sustainability.

Whatever habits, calorie deficits or exercise regimes you're trying to put in place - you have to ask yourself if it's sustainable.

When I set out to lose some weight, the one huge difference between all my failed attempts in the past was I asked myself is it sustainable?

You should be trying to implementing a lifestyle, not a 'lose weight quick' hack.

When you start on day one, ask yourself could you see yourself doing the same on day 100 or day 1000?

Because to lose weight and live a healthy and well balanced lifestyle, whatever way you go about it needs be sustainable in the long term.

See the article here:

I lost 70 pounds in seven months without a gym - here's my guide to how I did it - Irish Mirror

The 79th annual Golden Globes Awards, celebrating the best in televisionand movies is set to premiere on January 9, 2022.

It's a night that is eagerly awaited by many where actors and actresses from different projects come together to celebrate their achievements.

The women wear lavish gowns while the men don expensive suits and tuxedos, mingling with one another and taking unforgettable pictures on the red carpet.

The 2021 Golden Globes were postponed last year amid concerns of the coronavirus pandemic, but this year it is back in full swing.

With award season starting and the upcoming Golden Globes set to premiere, we can't forget some of the weird rules that celebrities are told to follow during the ceremony.

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According to E!, there are strict rules in place for celebrities who are late getting to their seats.

Producers are also"notoriously heavy-handed" with not allowing people to go back to their seats once break time is up.They don't want viewers to see several empty seats when cameras scan the room of celebrities.

There are also seat-fillers on call to sit in celebrities chairs as they wait behind closed doors until the next commercial break.

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According to Variety,the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has announced new eligibility guidelines for future Golden Globe Award shows.

The new rules will allow non-English language films to compete in their top categories, following the Minari backlash last awards season in which the association forceddirector Lee Isaac Chungs to compete in foreign language category instead of best picture.

This new rule allowsnon-English language films to compete in the best motion picture (drama) and motion picture (musical or comedy) categories.

The set of new rules comes after NBC annouced that it will not air the 2022 Golden Globes ceremony afterrecent controversies surrounding a lack of diverse voices within the HFPA.

However, the HFPA said that it willproceed with its annual awards presentation without NBC involvement, according to Reuters.

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According to ABC, the red carpet is pretty much divided into two lanes.

One lane is reserved for major stars like Brad Pitt, or Leonardo DiCaprio. The second lane is for celebrities who aren't "right lane" material, and fall below A-list.

It's sectioned off like this for the sole purpose of photographers being able to get the perfect shot of major stars, and will even ask their not-really-famous dates to step out of the way.

"Okay, can we get a fashion?" is apparently the cue for their date to get out of the way, says to LA Times photographer Jay L.Clendenin in an interview with Variety.

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Read the rest here:

7 Weird Rules Celebs Have To Follow During The Golden Globe Awards - YourTango