Posted 10-5-08

NewsRoom Shorts

NewsRoom Agency
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Baghdad Bombing Network Head Killed

The United States-led coalition in Iraq says it has killed an al-Qaeda leader wanted for several deadly bombings.

Mahir Ahmad Mahmud Hudu' al-Zubaydi, also known as Abu Assad or Abu Rami, and an unidentified female were killed in a raid on a building in Baghdad.

He is believed to be behind multiple car bombings in the capital, including two attacks Thursday that killed at least eight people.

Meanwhile, coalition forces say they also detained 10 suspected terrorists Friday and early Saturday in operations targeting al-Qaeda in northern and central Iraq.

Sick Leave Link To Mortality

Workers who have long periods of sick leave for psychiatric reasons are twice as likely to die from cancer as healthier employees.

The finding has come out of University College London research published in the British Medical Journal.

Sickness records were assessed from London-based employees in 20 government departments between 1985 and 1988 and compared with mortality up until 2004.

It found that among 6,500 civil servants studied, those who had taken a long period of sick leave had a 66 percent higher risk of early death.

The highest mortality risk was seen in those who had been off work with heart disease, stroke or related conditions, but absences due to common respiratory conditions and infections were also associated with an increased risk of death.

Study leader Jenny Head told the BBC that it was also the first time work absence for psychiatric reasons such as depression had been linked to death from cancer.

As a result, it has been suggested that information on sickness absence could provide GPs with a useful tool to identify workers with an increased risk of serious illness or risk of death.