American toddlers – especially Black and Hispanic kids – are too fat, suggesting that parents, and society as a whole, must put greater emphasis targeting obesity in early childhood.

Almost one in five American 4-year-olds are obese, and children of color represent the biggest chunk of that overweight population, according to new research.  In fact, researchers, who calculated the body mass index from a sample of 8,550 Hispanic, Black, White, Asian and Native-American 4-year-olds, found that 18.4 percent of them were obese. But there were wide differences between races.

"Significant differences in the prevalence of obesity between racial/ethnic groups were evident at 4 years of age," the researchers wrote in the April issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Using body mass index, they found that 31.2 percent of American Indian/Native Alaskans, 22 percent of Hispanics, 20.8 percent of Blacks, 15.9 percent of Whites and 12.8 percent of Asians were obese.

"It's surprising that there are large differences by racial/ethnic group by that age," said Sarah Anderson, an assistant professor of epidemiology at The Ohio State University and lead study author. Anderson and co-author Robert Whitaker's analysis showed that children were becoming obese even before encountering soda and candy vending machines in schools.

"These results really do point to the need for us to focus attention on early childhood and the need for research to understand how these differences can emerge so early," Anderson said. "To do that, we may need to understand the different family and cultural factors that are at play in these children's lives."

LIMA, (Reuters) - Former Peruvian President Alberto  Fujimori was convicted of human rights crimes and sentenced to  25 years in prison yesterday, th

e first time a democratically  elected Latin American president has been found guilty in his  own country of such offenses.

A three-judge panel convicted him of ordering a military  death squad to carry out two massacres that killed 25 people  during his 1990-2000 rule, when he was battling communist  guerrillas. Nearly 70,000 people died in two decades of  conflict in the Andean country.

Once lauded as a hero, Fujimori, 70, could spend the rest  of his life in prison. The verdict is likely to have  far-reaching political implications for Peru.

“He was the president who saved our country from  terrorism,” the former president’s daughter Keiko Fujimori, a  presidential hopeful and popular lawmaker, said as she called  for supporters to march in the streets to protest the verdict.

The elder Fujimori did not react to the ruling except to  say that he will appeal it.

Fujimori’s popularity soared when he defeated the brutal  Shining Path guerrillas, tamed economic chaos and freed dozens  of hostages taken by the Tupac Amaru insurgency during a siege  at the Japanese ambassador’s house in Lima.

But a corruption scandal involving his spy chief, Vladimiro  Montesinos, sank his government in 2000. Fujimori fled to exile  in Japan, the country where his parents were born. He was later  arrested in Chile and extradited to Peru, where he often  snoozed through testimony and took off his socks.

Other Latin American rulers faced trials over human rights  crimes before Fujimori, but they were military dictators or  prosecuted outside their home countries. Chilean General  Augusto Pinochet died in 2006 before he could be convicted.

Activists saw the trial as a turning point for Peru, still  coming to terms with a bloody civil war that started in 1980.

“For the first time, the Peruvian justice system rose to  the occasion in this historic fight against impunity,” said  Gisela Ortiz, whose brother was killed at La Cantuta University  in 1992 as Fujimori’s squads hunted for presumed leftists.

Fujimori’s conviction stemmed from the La Cantuta killings  and a 1991 massacre in the Barrios Altos section of Lima.

Many abuses by people on both sides of the civil war have  never been prosecuted, and thousands of unmarked graves scar  the countryside.

The Shining Path, led by a Maoist philosophy professor  named Abimael Guzman, was perhaps the most brutal of Latin  America’s insurgencies. It beheaded people with machetes in the  plazas of Andean towns, bombed the capital and killed  journalists. Guzman is currently in prison in Peru.

The state, which was nearly toppled, struggled for years to  halt the onslaught and sent guns to groups of vigilante  peasants in the hinterlands to help the army.

The violence also ensnared the current president, Alan  Garcia. He has been haunted by accusations that he violated  rights during his first term from 1985-1990. Pressure to put  him on trial may grow following the Fujimori verdict.

“With this ruling … the Peruvian court has shown the  world that even former heads of state cannot expect to get away  with serious crimes,” said Maria McFarland of the group Human  Rights Watch.

Garcia has fended off charges by saying he was a democratic  leader who lacked total control over the military, whereas  Fujimori turned into an authoritarian president and shut down  Congress.

Already a front-runner for the 2011 presidential race,  Fujimori’s daughter, a conservative like her father, has  painted the former president as a savior rather than sinner.

If no candidate wins a majority in the initial election,  the 33-year-old could end up in a run-off against fellow  hopeful Ollanta Humala, a leftist ally of Venezuelan President  Hugo Chavez, who nearly won in 2006.

Garcia, who is barred by the country’s constitution from  running for re-election in 2011, has told foreign investors he  will do his best to derail Humala’s candidacy by persuading  Peruvians to reject leftist models that have regained  popularity in Latin America.

Stacey Chandra, the 13-year-old who sustained serious stab wounds following a knife attack on Sunday evening, is still a patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital, where she is listed as being in a stable condition.

Debbie Chandra, the child’s mother, told Stabroek News that there has since been no further development into the matter. The older Chandra explained that statements were taken from her daughter but added that no arrests have been made.

Meanwhile, commenting on her daughter’s medical condition, Debbie said that the child has to have an ultrasound done at a private hospital before her discharge can be considered. This, the mother however noted, would be done sometime later this month when she would have acquired the money needed for it.

According to Debbie, the mother of the perpetrators has kept her children in hiding, which she said may be the reason why no one has been taken into custody.

Chandra, a student of Queenstown Community High School and a resident of Tiger Bay, was involved in an altercation with a boy. He subsequently went to fetch an older brother and sister, who confronted Chandra, the brother pulling a large pen knife and passing it on to the sister for her to attack Chandra.

On the night of the incident, the injured Chandra told her mother from her hospital bed that the girl rushed her so quickly she had no time to think. She was stabbed three times: in the neck, in the shoulder and in the rib.

Chandra was on her way home after plying her regular trade as a plastic bag vendor at the Stabroek Market. She would sell after school to assist with her school-related expenses. According to reports reaching this newspaper, after the attack, Chandra’s attackers stood calmly and watched as she was transported to the hospital. A man, who was with Chandra at the time, also received minor injuries during the attack when he attempted to intervene.

The attackers are said to be in their late teens and/or early twenties are known to Chandra.

A 64-year-old man is in a critical condition at the Georgetown Public Hospital after stabbing himself following an altercation with his former reputed wife during which he set his Sophia home afire.

The man of 118, C Field, Sophia was up to last night being treated for his injuries, including stab wounds to his stomach. His former reputed wife, Bernadette Jackson, 54, who ended their relationship some nine months ago and moved out of the home, was also treated at the medical institution last night for a few minor injuries.

Reports are that Jackson had returned to the home to collect her clothes and while there was attacked by the man who reportedly attempted to stab her with a knife. After setting the house afire, he jumped over the fence and then stabbed himself, reports say

A Brazilian dredge owner was shot three times by heavily armed bandits who descended on his camp at Arangoy, Cuyuni River early yesterday morning, robbing and beating his employees before escaping.

A joint services team has since been dispatched to the area, the police said in a press release last evening.  Edmilson De Souza Arango, 32, of Robb Street, was up to last night receiving treatment at the Georgetown Public Hospital. He sustained two gunshot wounds to his back and another to his left arm but is in a stable condition.

The police said investigations revealed that a group of six men armed with guns entered the mining camp around 6.30 am yesterday. In the camp at the time were Arango’s wife, Maria Chaves Silva and five workers, comprising three Guyanese and two Brazilians. “The men began to assault Chaves Silva and the five workers using their firearms while demanding gold.

During this, Edmilson De Souza Arango approached the camp and was shot and injured to his upper back. The armed men then took away a quantity of raw gold from the workers and escaped,” the police said.

Police sources said that the bandits were armed with “Ak-47’s and small guns”. Following the incident, a plane went to the area and returned to the city with the injured man last yesterday afternoon.

Arango and Silva are unable to speak English and a friend, who operates a business in the area, came to the city with them. The woman, who asked not to be identified, told Stabroek News that she learnt that around 6.30 am, Arango had gotten up and was brushing his teeth when three men accosted him. They demanded money and gold but he told them that he had nothing to give, she said, adding that production had not been going well. There were three other bandits inside the camp.

Police sources, meanwhile, said that when the bandits arrived at the camp, they started shooting and Arango concealed himself. He came out when the bandits threatened to shoot his wife and was shot.

“After they shoot him, they search the whole camp and carry away everything,” the friend told this newspaper. The bandits looted the camp, gun-butting the employees in the process.  Through an interpreter, Silva said that the bandits took passports, gold scales, metal detectors and clothing. She said they demanded gold and money from her but she told them that she did not have any. The Brazilian national was beaten about her upper body and head with a revolver. Silva said no gold or cash was taken since they did not have any, but “costume jewellery” brought from Brazil–which the bandits apparently thought was made of real gold–was grabbed during the attack. It was not clear how the bandits arrived at or escaped from the remote area, which has few roads.

The businesswoman, meanwhile, related that after the bandits left, Arango called her camp via two-way radio and she and others went and assisted in transporting him to the landing and then by boat for three hours to the nearest airstrip, from where he was flown to the city.

Arango had been operating in the area for four years and this is the first time he has been robbed.

Last June, another Brazilian miner, who was attached to another camp in the same area, was shot five times by bandits. Jose Leache, 46, had sustained wounds to his abdomen, both thighs and left hand.

Reports at the time had stated that Leache was heading to the Aranka Landing on an All Terrain Vehicle (ATV), along with his wife, Neach Da Silva, and an employee on June 1 last year, when four masked bandits, two of whom were armed with guns, struck. The men held them at gunpoint and ordered Da Silva and the employee to get off the vehicle after which several shots were discharged at Leache and the men escaped. He was hit and later transported to the Georgetown Public Hospital.

Stabroek News had been told at the time that the men emerged from the bushes and forced the ATV to stop. The men attacked Leache and shot him while Da Silva hid behind the vehicle and the employee ran to the landing which was close-by to alert persons there. The bandits were unable to take anything from Leache, as Da Silva was shouting and persons alerted by the employee came out. The bandits quickly disappeared into the bushes. Leache was taken to the landing and transported from the area by boat.

It was the second time that he had been attacked for that year. During the first attack in February 2008, the bandits attempted to shoot him but the gun did not fire.