Earlier this month, state workers performed mass physical exercise and were encouraged to climb an 8km (five mile) concrete staircase built into a hillside outside Ashgabat.

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It follows claims that low-flying jets on a training exercise recently led to mass panic, with kittiwake chicks falling into the sea and drowning.

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"When someone starts to exercise, they might increase muscle mass as well, and therefore might be frustrated not to see too much change on the scale in terms of total weight, " she says.

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Participants welcomed another new law in the pipeline, on the transparency of state institutions to the mass-media, as another effective legal instrument to exercise the right to access information, which is judged to improve good governance and civil society participation in decision-making.

UNESCO: MEDIA SERVICES

Although the researchers took into account a wide range of extenuating factors, including diet and exercise regimens, smoking, alcohol consumption, body mass index, and marital status, it's possible that people who drink coffee differ from the rest of the population in as-yet unidentified ways that make them less vulnerable to disease and early death.

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Not only are you healthier as a result, your comprehensive exercise program, which includes cardiovascular and weight-bearing exercise, is preventing further weight gain and allowing you to maintain muscle mass so your metabolism does not drop significantly as you get older.

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