10 Liver Cleansing Foods

As important as it may be for our health, we often don’t pay any attention to it until something goes wrong. This shouldn’t be the case however, because helping our liver to function optimally requires nothing more than the addition of certain foods to our diet. We show you the top 10 food we should incorporate into our diet for a healthier liver, and overall healthier you!
1.    Garlic

 

Garlic is an effective liver cleanser. It is rich in enzymes which help remove toxins from the liver. Garlic is also a good source of two natural compounds, selenium and allicin, which ensures effective removal of toxins from the liver.

High levels of triglycerides and cholesterol can clog the liver, making it difficult for the liver to function effectively. Garlic reduces the level of triglycerides and cholesterol, and by doing so it helps take extra load off the liver.
Processed garlic does not provide much of these liver-cleansing benefits, nor does powdered or minced garlic. For liver health, eat garlic raw.

2.    Beetroots

Another liver-healthy food is beetroots. They help cleanse as well as support liver function. Rich in beta-carotene and flavonoids, beetroots help to not only stimulate but also improve liver function. The other advantage is that beetroots also help purify the blood. You can add beetroots to your salad or drink a glass of beetroot juice daily.
Here’s a recipe of a potent liver-healthy salad: take 1 cup of chopped beetroots, juice of a medium-sized lemon and 2 tablespoons of virgin oil (go for cold-pressed extra virgin variety). Mix these ingredients. Consume 2 teaspoons of this salad every 2 hours every day during daytime.

3.    Grapefruit
 

Rich in antioxidants, pectin, and vitamin C, grapefruit makes for a powerful liver-cleansing food.
Grapefruit is a particularly good source of glutathione, an antioxidant that is very effective in neutralizing free radicals and detoxifying the liver. Another benefit that grapefruit provides is that it contains a compound called naringenin, which aids breaking down of fat. Reduction in fat, in turn, helps prevent  your liver from being overstressed.
You can add a grapefruit to your breakfast meal or drink a glass of juice (opt for freshly prepared juice instead of the canned variety) any time of the day.

4.    Lemons
 

Lemon aids liver cleansing in three ways. It is rich in an antioxidant called D-Limonene which promotes secretion of certain enzymes that help detoxify the liver.
It is also a good source of vitamin C, which helps the liver secrete more enzymes for better digestion. Lastly, lemon helps the liver absorb more minerals.
There are a number of ways in which you can add lemon to your diet. Add a dash of lemon juice to your salads or drink lemon juice. If you wish, you can add a teaspoon of honey to a glass of lemon juice before drinking it for double the health benefits.

5.    Avocados

According to one study, avocados are rich in certain chemicals that might reduce damage to the liver. This fruit provides plentiful of glutathione which the liver needs for removing toxins as well as to function properly.
There are two types of cholesterol: bad (LDL) and good (HDL) cholesterol. The liver has a hard time processing the former but it can process good cholesterol fairly easily. Avocados are extremely rich in monounsaturated fat, which increases the good cholesterol content and also reduces the bad cholesterol content.
Apart from offering glutathione (a liver cleansing compound) and monounsaturated fat, avocados also provides several plant nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that aid liver functioning.

6.    Green Tea

Green tea improves hydration levels and helps the body get rid of fat deposits as well as toxins.
According to one study, catechins present in green tea aids stimulation of lipid catabolism which helps keep fat deposits in the liver to the minimum. Green tea also reduces the damaging effects of alcohol and other toxic substances.
Green tea is also purported to be good for reducing the risk of liver disease and liver cancer.

7.    Apples

Effective removal of toxins from the intestinal tract and making sure cholesterol levels in the blood are normal helps reduce the burden on the liver and promote overall good liver health. Apples are extremely rich in pectin, a soluble fiber which not only aids toxin removal but also helps lower cholesterol levels.
Besides pectin, apples are also a source of malic acid, a natural-cleansing agent effective in removing toxins like carcinogens from the blood.

8.    Turmeric

Turmeric not only helps cleanse the liver but also boosts the ability of the body to digest fats. Turmeric contains a compound called curcumin that aids production of a key liver-detoxification enzyme.
You can use turmeric as a spice and add it to your cooking. You can also boil a glass of water containing ¼ teaspoon of turmeric, and drink the solution two times every day for two weeks to cleanse your liver.

9.    Broccoli

Broccoli is another must-have food if you are looking to increase your intake of liver-cleansing foods. This food helps flush out harmful toxins and chemicals from the body, mainly thanks to its high glucosinolates content.
Broccoli also offers a lot of fiber and a good amount of fat-soluble vitamin E. While fiber helps improve digestion, fat-soluble vitamin E aids liver function.
For good liver health, eat 3 cups of this supremely healthy vegetable at least thrice weekly.

10.    Walnuts

Walnuts contain high amounts of a particular amino acid that helps the liver detoxify ammonia. It also offers two other compounds, omega-3 fatty acids and glutathione, which assist the natural cleansing process.
According to one study, walnut polyphenols are effective in preventing liver damage caused by d-galactosamine and carbon tetrachloride.
You can have a handful of walnuts as a snack daily or add them to your salad, baked foods, or as a side dish.






 

Arsenal manager Compared Mesut Ozil To Bergkamp

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said: “Look at the numbers. On the assists they speak for him. He has become a complete sensational football player. I am very, very happy with his performances. He is one of the best in Europe certainly. In his position, he is sensational. Bergkamp was more of a goalscorer than him and he [Ozil] was more of an assists man but now he [Ozil] becomes more of a goalscorer so they really are comparable.”

Arsenal legend Thierry Henry holds the record for most BPL season assistances with 20 and Ozil has 17 games to beat that.

Ozil made his 16th assist of the season, double his nearest competitor Kevin De Bruyne. 

The Top 5 Midfielders Of 2015

Here are top five attacking midfielders from top five European leagues.

5. Henrikh Mkhitaryan
Mkhitaryan was signed by Borussia Dortmund in 2013. The 26-year-old helped his club to recover from a terrible start to the 2014/15 campaign. This season he has scored 13 goals in 19 games.

 

4. Marek Hamsik
Hamsik joined Napoli in 2007. In his career for Napoli the player he has scored 76 goals in 297 apps. The Slovakian midfielder was again in top form throughout 2015, helping them reach the semi finals of the Coppa Italia and Europa League.



3. Kevin De Bruyne
Manchester city signed De Bruyne in 2015 for £55 million. He is fantastic with the ball movements, and good scoring abilities to his credit as a midfield player.



2. Eden Hazard
Hazard is the Chelsea player from 2012. He has 23 goals in 127 matches.  He finished the 2014/15 campaign as Chelsea’s best player. He is good with his dribbling skills.



1. Mesut Ozil

Ozil made his 16th assist of the season, double his nearest competitor Kevin De Bruyne.
Arsenal legend Thierry Henry holds the record for most BPL season assistances with 20 and Ozil has 17 games to beat that. He is having his best season in Arsenal this campaign. Awesome with his ball movement among his opponents and deadly with defense breaking passes.

Hundreds march in Corsica after violent anti-Arab protests

Hundreds of people marched in Corsica on Sunday after two days of violent anti-Arab riots, sidestepping a ban on demonstrations in a flashpoint neighbourhood by taking their protests elsewhere in the capital.

Two people were detained over days of rioting on the French Mediterranean island, which saw demonstrators vandalise a Muslim prayer hall and set fire to books including copies of the Koran.

Hundreds marched through poor areas of the capital Ajaccio on Saturday for a second straight day, shouting slogans such as "This is our home!" and "Arabs get out".

Corsica's administrator Christophe Mirmand announced a ban on all protests and gatherings until at least January 4 in the poor Jardins de l'Empereur housing estate, the epicentre of the violence.

But hundreds took to the streets again on Sunday, dodging the ban by marching through other Ajaccio neighbourhoods chanting: "We fight against scum, not against Arabs!"

"We aren't thugs, we aren't racists," they cried as they marched to the police station and then through several low-income areas, before returning to the Jardins de l'Empereur estate where they were blocked by police.

Police keep watch as hundreds defy a ban on rallies imposed in a flashpoint area of Ajaccio 

 

The unrest followed a Christmas Eve clash in which two firefighters and a police officer were injured at the estate, home to some 1,700 people, half of them of non-French origin.

Regional official Francois Lalanne said a fire had been deliberately lit in the neighbourhood in a ruse aimed at "ambushing" the emergency services.

A firefighter told French television that about 20 people armed with iron bars and baseball bats had tried to attack them, but were unable to smash through the windows of their truck.

Two men in their 20s were held in custody as part of a probe into the unrest.
"Their involvement in the attack against the firefighters is still under investigation," said prosecutor Eric Bouillard, adding the men had had brushes with authorities in the past.

Police

The next day, 600 people gathered outside police headquarters in Ajaccio in a show of support for the police and firefighters. But some 300 broke away to head for the housing estate.
Shouting xenophobic slogans, the group smashed a Muslim prayer room, partially burning books including copies of the Koran, Lalanne said.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls wrote on Twitter that the break-in was "an unacceptable desecration", while also condemning the "intolerable attack" on the firefighters.

"This behaviour must stop. It hurts Corsica's image," Mirmand said.

On Sunday morning there were few people out on the streets of the estate, where residents were still reeling after the clashes.

"A fundamentally peaceful demonstration turned into racist violence," said one resident.

The unrest came as France remains jittery following the November 13 jihadist attacks in Paris that left 130 dead.

During regional elections in mid-December, Corsica's nationalist party won power for the first time.

The population of France's lush Mediterranean "Isle de Beaute" (Island of Beauty) increases by ten-fold during the peak tourist season.

Attacks by Boko Haram challenge Nigeria's claim of 'winning the war'

The Islamist militant group has hit the major city of Maiduguri twice in the past two days. 

 Boko Haram Islamic Islamists have struck the northeastern city of Maiduguri twice in the past two days, less than a week after Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari declared that his military had “technically won the war" against Boko Haram.

A female suicide bomber blew herself up while standing in line to enter a mosque on Monday, killing one person, according to the BBC.  The attack comes a day after Boko Haram deployed multiple suicide bombers and militants using rocket-propelled grenades in neighboring towns. The Associated Press puts the death toll from that incident at 30, but says it may be ”many times higher.” 

The Nigerian Army claimed to have intercepted and engaged with some of the suicide bombers, killing 10 of them. “The troops laid ambush on the terrorists’ suspected routes along Damboa road and eliminated them,” Col. Mustapha Anka, an Army spokesman, said in a statement late Sunday. “The explosive-ordnance device team have been mobilized and they are clearing the debris.”

It is unclear if the attacks are a direct response to President Buhari’s claim last week that the Nigerian Army was beating Boko Haram. Since Buhari took office in May, the military has made significant headway in curbing the insurgency, and pushing the Islamist group – under the name Islamic State in West Africa Province – further into Nigeria's Sambisa Forest.

"So I think technically we have won the war because people are going back into their neighborhoods,” he told the BBC. Boko Haram as an organised fighting force, I assure you, that we have dealt with them."

But as seen in both the Sunday and Monday attacks, Boko Haram has increasingly used suicide bombers to target civilians, a  strategy that the Nigerian military says shows the group’s desperation. Militants, according to a Council on Foreign Relations analysis, have also become more strategic with their targets, focusing on major cities like the capital, Abuja; Maiduguri, which serves as the headquarters of the counterinsurgency effort and the birthplace of Boko Haram; and even refugee camps.

“The blasts are among those that would be the last in this issue,” Chief of Army Staff Gen. Tukur Buruta said at a conference in September, as The Christian Science Monitor reported.  “We will start counting very few before we get to the end of this [campaign].”

However, Boko Haram remains vigilant. The self-declared Islamic State, with whom Boko Haram is affiliated, claimed earlier this month that its West Africa division had launched more than 100 attacks over the past two months, the Site Intelligence Group, with monitors extremist websites, reported. They also claimed to have killed more than a thousand people, which is difficult to confirm.

 

 

About 20 killed in mosque bombing in northern Nigerian city

About 20 people were killed and 90 wounded by a bomb explosion in a mosque in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Monday, the state emergency agency NEMA said.

The blast came a day after the army fought Boko Haram militants west of Maiduguri, capital of Borno state and birthplace of their campaign to create an Islamic state in the northeast of Africa's most populous country.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the blast bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, whose insurgency has killed thousands and displaced some 2.1 million people in the region.

Monday's blast happened in a western suburb where the army had exchanged fire on Sunday with suspected Boko Haram fighters who it said had tried to slip into Maiduguri to stage suicide bombings. Residents then reported explosions and heavy gunfire.

Musa Abdukadir, a resident, said that after the mosque attack he had counted the bodies of more than 50 victims in the state specialist hospital in Maiduguri. Medics had told him more bodies had been brought to two other hospitals. The count included victims from Sunday's fighting.

"We all fled yesterday as our houses were on fire. This morning we came back, and while we were counting the people who had burned in the houses, another bomb exploded," said Ibrahim Goni, a resident who said he had visited the blast scene.

An army counter-offensive earlier this year recaptured most of the territory Boko Haram had seized over the past few years. Boko Haram has since reverted to a strategy of hitting soft targets such as markets, bus stations and places of worship, as well as hit-and-run attacks on villages, mainly in Borno state.

Marijuana Legalization: New Hampshire Starts Issuing Medical Marijuana ID Cards

On Monday, New Hampshire began issuing the ID cards for qualifying patients to buy medicinal marijuana, ABC affiliate station WMUR-9 reported. Though the state Legislature legalized medicinal cannabis in 2013, ID card holders in the Granite State have been waiting to legally buy medical marijuana, and will continue waiting until springtime — when New Hampshire's first dispensaries are expected to open. 

"As we begin to issue registry identification cards to qualifying patients who want them, we look forward to those patients being able to access therapeutic cannabis at dispensaries in New Hampshire," New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Nick Toumpas said in a press release. The cards will be issued by mail to those approved patients and caregivers, ahead of state Alternative Treatment Centers (ATC) openings.

 

 

"The ATCs are moving quickly to open their dispensaries and we anticipate that the first dispensaries will open in Spring 2016," Toumpas added in the release. "We thank the Attorney General's Office for its consultation."

Yet according to the Dec. 22 press release from the New Hampshire DHHS, cardholders will still have to signal to the state which dispensary they've selected, wait for approval on that selection and then wait for the agreed-upon ATC dispensary location to open. 

The approval process is ongoing on a first come, first served basis, and the Therapeutic Cannabis Program officials have already received north of 100 applications. 

Who's eligible for legal weed in New Hampshire? A number of medical conditions qualify patients to apply for a medical marijuana ID card in the Granite State. Some of the conditions include cancer, glaucoma, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, among others, or "one or more injuries that significantly interferes with daily activities as documented by the patient's provider," according to the New Hampshire DHHS' explainer page. 

Patients suffering side effects from treatment for terminal or "debilitating" illnesses are also eligible for medical marijuana in New Hampshire. Some of those residual conditions include constant nausea, vomiting and muscle spasms. 

Though that might sound like all patients suffering from, say, cancer or Crohn's disease in New Hampshire would easily be able to gain access to medical marijuana if they wanted, a qualifying condition doesn't necessarily translate into a guaranteed ID card. According to the New Hampshire DHHS, medical providers must verify that ID applicants have not only been diagnosed with a qualifying disease, but that he or she also suffers one of the predetermined symptoms of the disease or its treatment. 

WMUR-9 reported that Monday's move to distribute ID cards follows a legal entanglement between New Hampshire state and a terminal cancer patient, Linda Horan. Horan, a New Hampshire state resident, went to court to be able to buy weed legally from a dispensary in Maine to treat her cancer, as New Hampshire locations have yet to open. 

"I would have been looking at an ending that including nothing but Big Pharma and opiates," Horan said of the judge's ruling, according to ABC. "I'm over the moon."

The battle elsewhere: So far, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana in some form, whether that means lessening the punitive measures for possession or decriminalizing medicinal or recreational cannabis. Yet only four states to date have legalized recreational cannabis — Oregon, Washington State, Alaska and Colorado. Yet as Mic previously reported, a number of states could legalize marijuana in 2016, including Nevada, California, Maine, Arizona, Connecticut, Michigan, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. 

69 journalists died on the job in 2015

Sixty-nine journalists were killed around the world on the job in 2015. Twenty-eight of them were slain by Islamic militant groups, including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The New York-based organization says Syria again was the deadliest place for journalists, though the number of deaths there in 2015 — 13 — was lower than in previous years of the conflict.

"These journalists are the most vulnerable," Joel Simon, the committee's executive director said of reporters and broadcasters working in Syria and other areas inundated with Islamic extremists. "This is, clearly based on the data, an incredible risk for journalists."

Those killed by Islamic extremist groups this year included eight journalists killed in an attack in Paris in January at the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The group al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attack in which two gunmen massacred 12 people. They said it was in "revenge for the prophet."

In October, two Syrian journalists, Fares Hamadi and Ibrahim Abd al-Qader were killed by Islamic State militants.
While some of the deaths were among reporters covering conflict zones, journalists in several countries also were killed after reporting on sensitive subjects. At least 28 of the reporters who were killed had received threats before their deaths, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

In Brazil, Gleydson Carvalho, a radio broadcaster who often criticized local police and politicians for purported wrongdoing, was shot and killed while presenting his afternoon radio show in August. The committee tracked six killings in Brazil this year — the highest it has recorded there.

Among the 69 journalists killed were reporter Alison Parker and videojournalist Adam Ward, of Roanoke, Virginia, TV station WDBJ, who were fatally shot in August by former co-worker Vester Lee Flanagan II during a live broadcast. Their interview subject, Vicki Gardner, was wounded. Flanagan fatally shot himself five hours later after a police chase.

"Journalists are a target and this just confirms it," Simon said of the data the committee compiled. "This is a global threat."

Other countries with several journalists killed included Bangladesh, where extremist groups are suspected in the deaths of four bloggers and a publisher; and South Sudan, where five journalists traveling with a local official were killed in an ambush by unidentified gunmen.
The deaths in Bangladesh included the February attack on Bangladeshi-American blogger and writer Avijit Roy with meat cleavers on a crowded street in Dhaka, the capital. The killings have raised concerns that religious extremism is taking hold in the traditionally moderate South Asian country.
Iraq, Yemen and Brazil also saw at least five journalists killed in 2015.
The Committee to Protect Journalists report warns that it is increasingly difficult to research the deaths of journalists in conflict-hit places such as Libya, Yemen and Iraq. As in Syria, the Islamic State group holds parts of Iraq, where the organization says it has received reports of "dozens more journalists killed."

The committee has been compiling reports of journalists' deaths since 1992. The count includes the deaths of at least 17 journalists killed in combat or on other dangerous assignments or murdered for their work.

In its own count, the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders says in a report released Tuesday that at least 67 journalists were killed worldwide while reporting or because of their work in 2015. It says the circumstances around another 43 deaths remain unclear.

Israeli army: 2 Palestinians killed after stabbing soldier

Taking a dead Palestinian to her burial






A Palestinian uses a slingshot to throw stones towards Israeli
 troops during clashes following the funeral of Palestinian
Riham Dawabsheh at Duma village




Palestinian women look on as an Orthodox Jew lays on
 the floor after he was attacked by other Palestinians

Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinians after they stabbed a soldier on Sunday near at a West Bank checkpoint, the military said.

The military said the attackers stabbed the soldier at a gas station near the Hawara crossing, south of the city of Nablus. The soldier was moderately wounded. Troops who were at the scene opened fire and killed both assailants. An Israeli soldier was accidentally lightly wounded in the shooting.

In another attack, earlier in the day, police said a soldier was stabbed and lightly wounded in Jerusalem by a 30-year-old attacker. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the stabbing took place near the city's central bus station.
A nearby security guard apprehended the attacker who was then taken into police custody. On Saturday, Israeli troops shot and killed another two would-be attackers.
The incidents are the latest in three months of unrelenting violence. Since mid-September, 20 Israelis have been killed in attacks. At least 129 Palestinians have died in the same period, of whom 89 Israel says were attacking or attempting to attack Israelis.

Also Sunday, Israel returned the bodies of seven suspected Palestinian assailants killed in recent weeks to their families, the military said. In October, Israel began withholding the bodies of suspected attackers as a tactic to crack down on the violence.

The military identified one of the returned dead as Issam Thawabta, who was killed in November after he fatally stabbed Hadar Buchris, a 21-year-old Israeli woman, at the Gush Etzion junction south of Jerusalem.

Israel says the unrelenting violence is fanned by a Palestinian campaign of lies and incitement. The Palestinians say it is rooted in frustrations stemming from nearly five decades of Israeli occupation.

Elephant seal repeatedly tries to cross California highway

Wildlife experts and law enforcement officials on Monday worked to keep a determined elephant seal off a Northern California highway that it has repeatedly tried to cross, snarling traffic in the area.

California Highway Patrol spokesman Officer Andrew Barclay said callers first reported the 500-pound mammal was trying to climb the divider wall of Highway 37 near Sears Point in Sonoma.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service crews and CHP officers managed to usher the adult seal back into the San Francisco Bay. But instead of swimming away, the animal got back on land at least twice, Barclay said.

"Every time we got her in the water, she circled back and tried to climb out again," he said.

Most of those trying to help the seal left the area Monday evening after she got back in the water and the tide got lower, decreasing her chances of reaching land.

Barclay said some CHP personnel would patrol the area overnight in case the mammal again attempts to reach land.

Crews with the Sausalito-based Marine Mammal Center and the San Pablo Bay National Marine Sanctuary also helped with the rescue.

Marine Mammal Center spokeswoman Laura Sherr said the seal doesn't seem injured and that she probably got lost and confused after swimming up the wrong waterway.