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Today is the World Diabetes Day, part of campaign to urge(argue) governments to do more to fight the disease. Organizers warn of a diabetes epidemic(epedemic) affecting two hundred fourteen six million people worldwide.

Last December, the United Nations passed a resolution to observe of Diabetes' Day every November fourteenth. The international diabetes Federation and the World Health Organiztion began the event in nineteen ninety-one. The federation is an alliance of diabetes groups. It also has partnerships with drug companies.

People with diabetes has two much glucose or sugar in their blood. The body changes food into glucose for energy with the help of insulin, a hormone.  In diabetics, the body produces little or no insuline or has trouble using the insuline that is produced.

As

Today is the World Diabetes Day, part of campaign to urge(argue) governments to do more to fight the disease. Organizers warn of a diabetes epidemic(epedemic) affecting two hundred fourteen six million people worldwide.

Last December, the United Nations passed a resolution to observe of Diabetes' Day every November fourteenth. The international diabetes Federation and the World Health Organiztion began the event in nineteen ninety-one. The federation is an alliance of diabetes groups. It also has partnerships with drug companies.

People with diabetes has two much glucose or sugar in their blood. The body changes food into glucose for energy with the help of insulin, a hormone.  In diabetics, the body produces little or no insuline or has trouble using the insuline that is produced.

As

For many than half a century, many farmers worldwide have added nitrogen (nitrigon) fertilizer to their soil. They do this to increase the supply of organic carbon for the long term health of the soil. But for scientists from the University of Illinois say too much synthetic nitrogen may instead reduce the organic carbon.

They report their findings in the current (General)Journal of Environmental Quality. The team led by S.A.KHan studied soil taken from the Morrow Plots, the experimental farm fields near the University of Illinois have been used for more than one hundred years. The researchers studied one area where corn is continuious continuousely grown. They compare it with another area where corn is planted in turn with oats and hay.

Over a period of more than fifty years. The area where only corn was grown got more c

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

Viruses, bacteria and other organisms in dirty water sicken hundreds of millions people every year. Yet, there are many different water treatment technologies available.

Some systems use ultraviolet light to destroy harmful organisms. One product that disinfects water with UV light is called Aqua Star. made by Meridian Design.

The American company says most UV water purification systems put into homes have one or more filters. These use carbon or mesh to catch impurities. The filters are added to improve the taste and smell of water.

But the company says a complex system like this is often not needed in situations where the aim is just to make water safe to drink.

The Aqua Star device is a one litre bottle with an  ultraviolet lamp inside. The user pushes a button and the light goes on for about a minute and a half. The lamp is powered by two small battaries.

I'm Susan Clark with the Special English Program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Tom Smith is the best hitter on his company's baseball team. For weeks during the playing season, Tom hit a homerun in every game the team played. But then suddently, he stop hitting homeruns. He could not hit the baseball at all. One day he stuck out three times in one game. He said, 'I'm afraid I'm losing it. '

Merry Jones bought a dress in a women clothing store. She felt very happy about buying the dress until she got home. Then she remembered she had left her credit car at the store when she used it to pay for the dress. It was the third time that month that Merry had forgotton something important. Merry was very angry with herself. She said 'am I losing it?'

Emma Cleveland was teaching a class in mathematics at a college. She began to explain the students how to solve the very difficult

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Depression can cause long periods of sadness and hoplessness, feelings of low self-worth, even physical pain. It is the leading cause of suicide.

The World Health Organization says more than one hundred twenty million people worldwide suffer from depression. But many people may not know it can start at a young age. In the United States, for example, health official estimate that about five percent of adolescents are depressed.

Researchers in the United States have just reported on a study of more than three hundred patients age twelve to seventeen, all suffered from major depression disorder, the most common form of the disease.

The researchers divided them into three groups. One received the antidepressant drug Prozac. Another received cognitive behavioral therapy. The third recei

The political crisis in Pakistan deepened in Friday. Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto try to lead a big protest against emergency rule declared last Saturday by President Pervez Musharraf. Instead, the former Prime Minister spent the day under a house arrest. She tried to leave her home in Islamabad to attend a demonstration that she organized in nearby Rawalpindi. But she could not get passed barriers and hundreds of police around her home.

Late in the day, however, Benazir Bhutto was freed. The government said the detention order has been withdrawn. In Rawalpindi, police clashed with several hundred of protesters who violated a ban on demonstrations. Benazir Bhutto says she still plans to lead a protest march early next week from M. to Islamabad. She returned to Pakistan last month after eight years of exile to avoid corruption charges. Before she returned, s

Last week we told you about the big losses at the Investment Bank Merrill Lynch. But the losses may be even bigger at the nation's biggest bank CITIGroup.

CITIGroup estimated this week that it will take losses of eight billion to eleven billion dollars on investments in risky housing loans. Many people who bought houses with subprim mortgages and now unable to pay them back. The estimated write-downs are for the banks current period October through December. CitiGroup says they represent five to seven billion dollars after-taxes. The bank reported six and a half billion dollars in credit related losses for the third quarter of the year.

Charles Prince, CITIGroup's chief executive officer resigned under pressure on Sunday. He led the New York based bank since two thousand three. He took over for Sanford Weill who brought CIT

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

A common belief about AIDS and marriage is that husbands are more likely to infect wives than the other way around. Generally speaking, this may be true. But reseachers have found that women may be responsible for more infections than experts have thought.

Vinod Mishra at Macro International, a research group in the United States led a study of married couples in Africa. He studied what are known as discordant couples. This meant one partner had HIV. the virus causes AIDS, while the other did not.

He examined population records and medical information from eleven African countries. He found that in four of these eleven countries, women were the infected partners in majority cases.

This was true in sixty-two percent of couples in Ivory Coast and Kenya. Wives also