Saturday, October 29, 2022
Thursday, October 27, 2022
Bits and Bites > A Little Rapunzel in Dubai; Neanderthal Families of Southern Siberia
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Rapunzel Syndrome: Rat-shaped hair ball retrieved from five-year-old
Dubai girl’s intestine
In a rare condition, Indian expat girl used to ‘ingest hair strands when she was a baby’
Published: October 27, 2022 09:37
Sajila Saseendran, Senior Reporter
Gulf News
Dubai: In a rare medical condition named Rapunzel Syndrome, a rat-shaped ball of hair — 20cm long and 4cm thick — was recently removed from the small intestine of a five-year-old schoolgirl in Dubai.
When KG student Diya Rajesh complained of stomach pain on October 15, her mother Mahalakshmi Rajesh thought her daughter had not yet completely recovered from the viral fever she had suffered three weeks ago following a bout of vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach pain.
However, along with acute abdominal pain this time, she kept vomiting in greenish yellow colour for three days. When the pain did not subside even after three days of symptomatic treatment from a clinic, Diya was rushed to NMC Royal Hospital in Dubai Investment Park, where doctors diagnosed her with Rapunzel Syndrome and retrieved a rat-shaped ball of hair from her small intestine.
Only few such cases have been reported in world medical literature, said Dr Venkatesh M Annigeri, a consultant paediatric surgeon whose team treated Diya.
The syndrome
The syndrome is named after the fairy-tale character Rapunzel who was known for her long hair. However, the condition is caused by the habit of eating or ingesting hair, usually found in young women.
On clinical examination after her admission in the emergency department, Dr Annigeri said Diya was diagnosed to have acute intestinal obstruction (complete block in the small bowel).
“With abdominal ultrasound and Contrast Enhanced Computerised Tomography [CECT], the child was diagnosed with a rare clinical condition — primary small bowel trichobezoar — which was causing acute intestinal obstruction,” he added.
He said trichobezoar or concretion of hair refers to a mass of hair accumulated within the gastrointestinal tract.
Rat-shaper-hair-ball-retrieved-from-the-small-intestine-of-Diya-1666849050408
Rare in young age
After an emergency abdominal surgery that lasted for an hour, the rat-shaped hair chunk was removed from Diya’s small bowel on October 18.
“It is a rare clinical entity. Over 90 per cent of trichobezoars are found in young women and girls between 15 and 20 years of age. Our case is very rare due to her very young age.”
Dr Annigeri said a trichobezoar occurs mainly in association with a psychiatric disorder affecting usually young women, having the tendency of pulling out their own hair (trichotillomania) and eating it (trichophagia), which then remains undigested in the stomach.
“Stomach is the common site of occurrence. Primary small bowel bezoar without associated gastric bezoar like in our case is very rare,” he pointed out.
How did Diya get it?
Speaking to Gulf News, Diya’s mother Mahalakshmi said her child had suffered from the hair-ingesting syndrome only when she was a baby.
“That was when she was six-seven months or so,” she said. Mahalakshmi said she was aware of pica disorder in babies due to which they eat non-food items.
“We had noticed that she was picking up hair from the floor and eating. I had to keep cleaning the house three-four times a day. She used to go under the cot and find out some strands of hair. By the time I catch hold of her, she would have swallowed it,” she recollected.
Mahalakshmi said she was hoping that things would be normal when Diya starts having solid food. And it did. “She stopped that habit when she started eating food after some months.”
However, she never expected that her child had ingested such a huge concretion of hair. “She did not know she had this syndrome. When she grew, she loved growing her hair and she doesn’t like to cut her long hair now. So, it was a big shock to us,” she added.
First 'concrete picture' of Neanderthal family revealed by DNA
Researchers focus on multiple Neanderthal remains found in the caves in southern Siberia
Published: October 19, 2022 23:18
AFP
A reconstruction of a Neanderthal father and his daughter is seen in this undated handout photo provided by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Image Credit: REUTERS
Paris: The original Flintstones? The largest genetic study of Neanderthals ever conducted has offered an unprecedented snapshot of a family, including a father and his teenage daughter, who lived in a Siberian cave around 54,000 years ago.
The new research, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, used DNA sequencing to look at the social life of a Neanderthal community, finding that women were more likely to stray from the cave than men.
Previous archaeological excavations have shown that Neanderthals were more sophisticated than once thought, burying their dead and making elaborate tools and ornaments.
However little is known about their family structure or how their society was organised.
The sequencing of the first Neanderthal genome in 2010, which won Swedish paleogeneticist Svante Paabo the medicine Nobel prize earlier this month, offered a new way to discover more about our long-extinct forerunners.
An international team of researchers focused on multiple Neanderthal remains found in the Chagyrskaya and Okladnikov caves in southern Siberia.
The scattered fragments of bones were mostly in a single layer in the earth, suggesting the Neanderthals lived around the same time.
"First we had to identify how many individuals we had," Stephane Peyregne, an evolutionary geneticist at Germany's Max Planck Institute and one of the study's co-authors, told AFP.
'Seem much more human'
The team used new techniques to extract and isolate the ancient DNA from the remains.
By sequencing the DNA, they established there were 13 Neanderthals, seven males and six females. Five of the group were children or early adolescents.
Eleven were from the Chagyrskaya cave, many of them from the same family including the father and his teenage daughter, as well as a young boy and a woman who were second-degree relatives, such as a cousin, aunt or grandmother.
The researchers also worked out that one man was a maternal relative of the father because he had a genetic phenomenon called heteroplasmy, which only passes down a couple of generations.
In this photo provided by Bence Viola, researchers excavate a cave in the mountains of Siberia, Russia.
Image Credit: AP
"Our study provides a concrete picture of what a Neandertal community may have looked like," Max Planck's Benjamin Peter, who supervised the research along with Paabo, said in a statement.
"It makes Neandertals seem much more human to me," he added.
Genetic analysis showed that the group did not interbreed with its nearby relatives such as humans and Denisovans, hominins discovered by Paabo in caves just a few hundred kilometres away.
However we know that Neanderthals did breed with homo sapiens at some point - Paabo's research also revealed that almost all modern humans have a little Neanderthal DNA.
Except Africans!
Rampant inbreeding
The community of around 10 to 20 Neanderthals seems to have instead bred largely among themselves, displaying very little genetic diversity, the study found.
Neanderthals existed between 430,000 to 40,000 years ago, so this group was living in the twilight of its species.
This photo provided by Bence Viola shows the Chagyrskaya Cave area in Siberia, Russia. Image Credit: AP
The study compared the community's level of inbreeding to endangered mountain gorillas. Another explanation for the inbreeding could be that the Neanderthals lived in an isolated region.
"We are probably dealing with a very subdivided population," Peyregne said.
The researchers found that the group's Y-chromosomes, which are inherited from father to son, were far less diverse than its mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from mothers.
This suggests that the women travelled more frequently to interact and breed with different groups of Neanderthals, while the men largely stayed home.
Travelled!???!! Does that mean something like kidnapped?
Antoine Balzeau, a palaeoanthropologist at France's National Museum of Natural History, said that fossils found in the Sidron Cave in Spain prompted suggestions of a similar Neanderthal community there, but far less complete genetic material is available.
Balzeau, who was not involved in the latest study, said it was "a very interesting technical feat".
But "it will have to be compared with other groups" of Neanderthals, he added.
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
European Politics > The New, New Prime Minister of the UK
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The spectacular fall from grace of Liz Truss has re-opened the door for Rishi Sunak to become PM. Is this good news or bad? Is he Deep State's man? The good news is, Suella's back!
Sunak takes over as UK prime minister amid economic crisis
By JILL LAWLESS
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak delivers a speech at 10 Downing Street in London, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. New British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrived at Downing Street Tuesday after returning from Buckingham Palace where he was invited to form a government by Britain's King Charles III. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
LONDON (AP) — Rishi Sunak became Britain’s third prime minister this year on Tuesday, tasked with taming an economic crisis that has left the country’s finances in a precarious state and millions struggling to pay their food and energy bills.
Sunak, who is the U.K.’s first leader of color, met King Charles III at Buckingham Palace, where the monarch officially asked the new leader of the governing Conservative Party to form a government, as is tradition.
Sunak clinched the leadership position Monday, seen by his party as a safe pair of hands to stabilize an economy sliding toward recession — and stem its own plunging popularity, after the brief, disastrous term of Liz Truss.
Her package of unfunded tax cuts spooked financial markets with the prospect of ballooning debt, drove the pound to record lows and forced the Bank of England to intervene — weakening Britain’s fragile economy and obliterating Truss’ authority within her party.
In one of his first acts, Sunak announced he would retain Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt, appointed by Truss to steady the markets two weeks ago amid the turmoil. His removal would have set off new tremors.
Sunak — at 42 the youngest British leader in more than 200 years — acknowledged the scale of his challenge as well as the skepticism of a British public alarmed at the state of the economy and weary of a Conservative Party soap opera that has chewed through two prime ministers in as many months.
“I fully appreciate how hard things are,” Sunak said outside the prime minister’s 10 Downing Street residence. “And I understand, too, that I have work to do to restore trust after all that has happened. All I can say is that I am not daunted.”
Sunak immediately set about appointing a Cabinet, aiming to put his stamp on the government while bringing in people from different wings of the Conservative Party.
He removed about a dozen members of Truss’ government, but kept several senior figures in place besides Hunt, including Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Defense Secretary Ben Wallace.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who resigned last week in a move that helped trigger Truss’ downfall, got her job back. A leading light of the Conservatives’ right wing, Braverman is charged with fulfilling a controversial, stalled plan to send some asylum seekers arriving in Britain on a one-way trip to Rwanda.
Sunak also brought back faces from the era of Truss’ predecessor, Boris Johnson, including Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab and Cabinet veteran Michael Gove.
Sunak aims to assemble an experienced Cabinet whose competence can erase memories of the missteps and U-turns of the past months. But the right-of-center party’s divisions over immigration, relations with Europe and other big issues, remain deep. Allies of Truss and the scandal-plagued Johnson who have been sidelined or demoted from government can now nurture grievances from Parliament’s back benches.
“This is not a fresh start. It’s the same Conservative cabinet of chaos,” opposition Labour Party lawmaker Rosena Allin-Khan said on Twitter.
When he was Treasury chief, Sunak became popular with the public by handing out billions in support to shuttered businesses and laid-off workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But now he will have to oversee tax hikes and public spending cuts as he tries to bring inflation and government debt under control. A wave of strikes over pay that has already seen walkouts by railway staff, telecoms workers, garbage collectors, lawyers and dockworkers is likely to spread.
Acknowledging “difficult decisions to come,” Sunak tried to draw a line under the chaos that engulfed Truss and Johnson. He said his government “will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.”
Opponents already depict Sunak as out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people because of his privileged private school background, previous career as a hedge fund manager and vast wealth.
Much of Sunak’s fortune comes through his wife Akshata Murty, whose father is the billionaire founder of Indian IT firm Infosys. The couple is worth 730 million pounds ($826 million), according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
In April 2022, it emerged that Murty did not pay U.K. tax on her overseas income. The practice was legal — and Murty soon agreed to relinquish it — but it looked bad at a time when millions of Britons were struggling to make ends meet.
Sunak’s victory is a remarkable reversal of fortune just weeks after he lost to Truss in a Conservative election to replace Johnson.
Sunak was chosen as Conservative leader on Monday after becoming the only candidate to clear the nomination threshold of 100 lawmakers. Sunak defeated House of Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt — who keeps that job in his government — and Johnson, who failed to rally enough support for a comeback bid.
Next Sunak has to prepare for a budget statement, scheduled to be delivered by Hunt on Oct. 31, that will set out how the government plans to come up with billions of pounds (dollars) to fill a fiscal hole created by soaring inflation and a sluggish economy — and exacerbated by Truss’ destabilizing plans.
Truss announced her resignation last week and departed Tuesday after making a defiant public statement in Downing Street, seven weeks to the day after she was appointed prime minister.
Truss offered a defense of her low-tax vision, saying she was “more convinced than ever that we need to be bold and confront the problems we face.”
She leaves a Conservative Party trailing the left-of-center Labour Party in opinion polls. Sunak has at most two years to turn its fortunes around. There does not need to be an election until the end of 2024, though public pressure to call an early poll is growing.
Jill Rutter, of the Institute for Government, said Sunak’s task was to show the Conservatives “are capable of governing in a fair way in the national interest.”
“If they continue to look like a party that is incapable of making decisions, incapable of making those decisions stick, then they will probably deserve to be punished by the electorate next time round,” she said.
Saturday, October 22, 2022
Covid-19 > Sudden Deaths of Young Canadian Doctors not Causing enough Alarm
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Alberta Doctor Calls on Medical Association to Investigate
‘Sudden Deaths’ of ’80 Young Doctors’
By Isaac Teo, Epoch Times
October 20, 2022
Updated: October 22, 2022
A health-care worker is seen making his way into the Emergency department of the Vancouver General Hospital in a file photo.
(Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press)
An Alberta doctor is calling on the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) to look into what he says is a significant jump in doctors’ “sudden deaths” following the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines beginning in December 2020.
“I am now providing you an update with information about 80 young Canadian doctors who died suddenly or unexpectedly since the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines,” wrote Dr. William Makis, a nuclear medicine physician and a former clinical academic colleague at the Department of Radiology at the University of Alberta, in a letter to CMA on Oct. 15.
“Four more doctors have died since my previous letter, and these unexpected deaths are accelerating. You cannot continue to ignore this.”
Makis has been speaking out about the “sudden and unexpected deaths” of young doctors who were “double, triple, or quadruple COVID-19 vaccinated” through letters, social media platform Gettr, and interviews.
Makis had sent a previous letter to the CMA on the subject, which, he said in his Oct. 15 letter, wasn’t responded to.
“These previously healthy doctors died suddenly while engaging in regular physical activity, died unexpectedly in their sleep, suffered heart attacks, strokes, unusual accidents, or developed sudden onset aggressive cancers,” said the Sept. 3 letter, referring to 32 cases of young doctors who passed away, which Makis tallied at the time.
He called for the termination of all COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the public health care sector, and also called for urgent investigations and public inquiries to ascertain the cause of the death of those doctors.
In his latest letter, Makis said his team has assembled a database of 1,638 cases of Canadian doctor deaths during the period of 2019–2022, with 972 of them obtained from CMA’s website.
“Our preliminary analysis of this extensive data suggests that Canadian doctor deaths under age 50 in 2022 will be 2-fold higher compared to the 2019–2020 average,” Makis wrote, adding that cases under age 40 and 30 are five-fold and eight-fold higher, respectively.
‘Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories’
In response to Makis’s letter, the CMA told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement on Oct. 17 that the association is concerned with “misinformation and conspiracy theories” spreading online about the recent deaths of physicians across Canada.
“There is no evidence to confirm or support the various theories that have been circulated. Some of the theories appear to rely on the CMA’s InMemoriam service as evidence,” said spokesperson Eric Lewis.
Isn't that a contradiction of terms?
“The InMemoriam service is offered to CMA members so they can keep track of their colleagues and recognize their passings over time. It is provided based on information sent to the CMA and should never be viewed as an exhaustive list of physicians’ deaths or as evidence to support conspiracies surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines or other issues.
“The CMA continues to encourage all Canadians to be up to date with all their vaccines to prevent serious health issues,” Lewis added.
Data Crawl
The Epoch Times requested Makis to provide his data and analysis, to which he replied in an email on Oct. 17 that he will only release the database to the provincial governments. But he added that he can explain how his team obtained the data and derived the 80 “sudden deaths” from the 1,638 cases of doctor deaths.
Makis said the 972 cases from the CMA’s website were obtained using a wayback machine that helped the team to crawl data from the archives of the “InMemoriam” page, as many entries have been deleted and are no longer available for “Canadians to look at and compare.”
The other 666 cases, he said, were obtained from various official medical sources including the websites of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, provincial medical associations, provincial colleges of physicians and surgeons, university medical school websites, and university medical school alumni associations.
“These 1,638 were then cross-referenced to publicly available obituaries to obtain any additional information. Note was made of deaths being ‘unexpected’ or ‘sudden,’” he said.
When he analyzed the data of doctors under 70 years old, he said a total of 80 had died “suddenly” or “unexpectedly,” and another 60 had prior medical conditions such as “cancer diagnosed prior to vaccine rollout, ALS, Parkinson’s or Dementia, or another long-term illness, or had retired years before the pandemic.”
“That’s where the number 80 comes from. The additional 60 who died and had prior medical conditions, are separate from the 80. While mRNA may have contributed to their deaths, they were excluded for having prior medical illness,” he said.
In addition, he shared his analysis of the death rate of different age groups, starting with all doctors under age 50, who he found “died at almost twice the rate in 2021 (and will be the same in 2022) compared to 2019 and 2020.”
“All doctors under age 40 died at a rate 5-fold higher in 2022 compared to 2019, or 2020 (the average for the 2019/2020 period is 1.5 deaths/year, in 2022 there were 8 deaths so far, so > 5-fold),” he said.
“All doctors under age 30 died at a rate 8-fold higher in 2022 compared to 2019, or 2020 (the average for the 2019/2020 period is 0.5 deaths/year, in 2022 there were 4 deaths so far, so 8-fold).
‘No Autopsies Done’
In July and August, The Associated Press and Reuters respectively reported that the cases of three doctors from Trillium Health Partners-Mississauga Hospital who “DIED suddenly in 1 week, apparently after getting latest mandated booster” that were shared on social media, were unrelated to COVID-19 vaccines, based on their fact-checking.
The three doctors—Dr. Jakub Sawicki, Dr. Stephen McKenzie, and Dr. Lorne Segall—are listed among the 80 doctors.
Makis countered that no autopsies were done on the three doctors.
“Two of them had developed aggressive cancer only after receiving two doses of COVID-19 vaccine. The fact check only repeated a baseless statement that was made by the Hospital at which the doctors worked,” he said in his email.
“The hospital made this baseless claim that their deaths were ‘not related to the COVID vaccine’ but had no evidence or information to back up this claim as autopsies were not done.”
A spokesperson at Trillium Health declined to provide details of the causes of the deaths, citing the need to protect the health information of the deceased, when requested by The Epoch Times in late July.
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Thursday, October 20, 2022
Islam - Current Day > IDF Killer shot dead in 2nd attack; Taliban slaughter captives in Panjshir Valley; Iranian athlete sent home for not wearing hijab
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Terrorist who murdered female soldier last week is killed in new terror attack
October 19, 2022
Emergency responders at the scene of a Palestinian shooting attack in Maale Adumim, Oct. 19, 2022.
(Twitter/Screenshot)
Udai Tamimi, who killed IDF soldier Noa Lazar was shot and killed in Maale Adumim after opening fire on security guards.
By David Hellerman, World Israel News
A Palestinian terrorist who was killed after opening fire on security guards at the entrance to Maale Adumim on Wednesday night was identified as Udai Tamimi, the same gunman who killed IDF Sgt. Noa Lazar last week.
Tamimi’s death ended a 10-day manhunt after he opened fire on a security checkpoint in eastern Jerusalem near the Shuafat refugee camp on Oct. 9. Two other Israelis were injured in that attack.
Tamimi opened fire on guards at the entrance to the Maale Adumim on Wednesday night. Guards returned fire, killing Tamimi who was pronounced dead at the scene by United Hatzalah medics. Hebrew reports said he was found carrying a grenade and knife.
A 24-year-old Israeli security guard was sent to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center with a gunshot wound in the hand. Hospital officials said he was listed in light condition.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid praised the security forces for neutralizing Tamimi and wished a speedy recovery to the injured guard.
“We will not rest until we lay our hands on every terrorist who harms Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers. We will act with an iron hand and without hesitation against terrorism,” Lapid said in a statement.
Taliban killed captives in restive Afghan province
By RIAZAT BUTT
October 17, 2022
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — The Taliban captured, bound and shot to death 27 men in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley last month during an offensive against resistance fighters in the area, according to a report published Tuesday, refuting the group’s earlier claims that the men were killed in battle.
One video of the killings verified by the report shows five men, blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs. Then, Taliban fighters spray them with gunfire for 20 seconds and cry out in celebration.
The investigation by Afghan Witness, an open-source project run by the U.K.-based non-profit Center for Information Resilience, is a rare verification of allegations that the Taliban have used brutal methods against opposition forces and their supporters, its researchers said. Since taking power in August 2021, the Taliban have imposed a tighter and harsher rule, even as they press for international recognition of their government.
David Osborn, the team leader of Afghan Witness, said the report gives the ”most clear-cut example” of the Taliban carrying out an “orchestrated purge” of resistance fighters.
Afghan Witness said it analyzed dozens of visual sources from social media — mostly videos and photographs — to conclusively link one group of Taliban fighters to the killings of 10 men in the Dara District of Panjshir, including the five seen being mowed down in the video.
It said it also confirmed 17 other extrajudicial killings from further images on social media, all showing dead men with their hands tied behind their backs. Videos and photos of Taliban fighters with the bodies aided geolocation and chrono-location, also providing close-ups of the fighters at the scene. These were cross-referenced with other videos suspected to feature the group.
“Using open-source techniques we have established the facts around the summary and systematic execution of a group of men in the Panjshir Valley in mid-September,” Osborn said. “At the time of their execution, the detained were bound, posing no threat to their Taliban captors.”
Enayatullah Khawarazmi, the Taliban-appointed spokesman for the defense minister, said a delegation is investigating the videos released on social media. He said he was unable to give further details as the investigation is ongoing.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Taliban-run government, was not immediately available for comment.
Last month, Mujahid was reported as saying the Taliban had killed 40 resistance fighters and captured more than 100 in Panjshir. He gave no details on how the 40 men died.
The force fighting in the mountainous Panjshir Valley north of Kabul — a remote region that has defied conquerors before — rose out of the last remnants of Afghanistan’s shattered security forces. It has vowed to resist the Taliban after they overran the country and seized power in August 2021.
Ali Maisam Nazary, head of foreign relations at the National Resistance Front for Afghanistan, said: “The Taliban committed war crimes by killing POWs that surrendered to them point blank and the videos are evidence of this.”
Afghan Witness said it has credible evidence of a further 30 deaths due to last month’s Taliban offensive against alleged resistance fighters in Panjshir.
Iranian athlete Elnaz Rekabi sent home, fate uncertain
after competing without hijab
The Associated Press ·
Posted: Oct 18, 2022 6:55 AM ET | Last Updated: October 18
There is growing concern for the safety of Iranian rock climber Elnaz Rekabi after she competed in South Korea without wearing her nation's mandatory headscarf covering. Some fear Rekabi will be detained — or worse — when she arrives in Iran.
An Iranian female competitive climber left South Korea on Tuesday after competing at an event in which she climbed without her nation's mandatory headscarf covering, authorities said. Farsi-language media outside of Iran warned she may have been forced to leave early by Iranian officials and could face arrest back home, which Tehran quickly denied.
The decision by Elnaz Rekabi to forgo the headscarf, or hijab, came as protests in Iran sparked by the Sept. 16 death in custody of a 22-year-old woman have entered a fifth week. Mahsa Amini was detained by the country's morality police over her clothing.
The demonstrations in over 100 cities represent the most-serious challenge to Iran's theocracy since the mass protests surrounding its disputed 2009 presidential election.
A later Instagram post on an account attributed to Rekabi described her not wearing a hijab as "unintentional," though it wasn't immediately clear whether she wrote the post or what condition she was in at the time.
Rekabi, 33, left Seoul on a Tuesday morning flight, the Iranian Embassy in South Korea said.
But in a tweet, the embassy also denied "all the fake, false news and disinformation" regarding Rekabi's departure. It posted an image of her wearing a headscarf at a previous competition in Moscow, where she took a bronze medal.
Lawyer, human rights activist and senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute Kaveh Shahrooz says Iran is on the precipice of change as people continue to protest against the regime despite brutal crackdowns.
The BBC's Persian service, which has extensive contacts within Iran despite being banned from operating there, quoted an unnamed "informed source" who described Iranian officials as seizing both Rekabi's mobile phone and passport.
BBC Persian also said she initially had been scheduled to return on Wednesday, but her flight apparently had been moved up unexpectedly.
IranWire, another website focusing on the country, founded by Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari who once was detained by Iran, alleged that Rekabi would be immediately transferred to Tehran's notorious Evin prison. Evin prison was the site of a massive fire this weekend that killed at least eight prisoners.
Rekabi didn't put on a hijab during Sunday's final at the International Federation of Sport Climbing's Asia Championship, according to the Seoul-based Korea Alpine Federation, the organizers of the event.
'It's about human rights and women's rights'
Shohreh Bayat, an Iranian international chess referee, had a similar experience at the Women's World Chess Championship in Shanghai in January 2020.
She says she was wearing her hijab loosely, allowing her hair to show, and received a warning from the Iranian Chess Federation that she must wear it properly. She refused.
"I tried to even push it back more to show more of my hair as a protest," she told CBC News's Idil Mussa.
Shohreh Bayat, after deciding not to wear her hijab during the 2020 International Chess Federation Women's World Chess Championship in Shanghai, on Jan. 11, 2020. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Bayat says as a result, she was ordered to issue a written apology, say all of her achievements belonged to the Iranian regime and to give interviews only to the state-run news agencies. She refused again.
"I couldn't do the things that they were asking me because it was against what I believe," she said. "This was the right thing to do, and I just wanted to be myself and I wanted to support women's rights and human rights."
Bayat says she stopped wearing the hijab altogether, and wound up seeking asylum in the U.K. after being warned she would be arrested if she returned home to Iran.
She calls Rekabi "our champion" and says her decision to not wear the headscarf was a very strong statement.
"It's just not about hijab. It's about human rights and women's rights."
Apology in Instagram post
Federation officials said Rekabi wore a hijab during her initial appearances at the one-week climbing event. She wore just a black headband when competing Sunday, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail; she had a white jersey with Iran's flag as a logo on it.
The later Instagram post, written in the first person, offered an apology on Rekabi's behalf. The post blamed a sudden call for her to climb the wall in the competition — although footage of the competition showed Rekabi relaxed as she approached and after she competed.
Rekabi was on Iran's 11-member delegation, comprised of eight athletes and three coaches, to the event, according to the federation.
Federation officials said they were not initially aware of Rekabi competing without the hijab but looked into the case after receiving inquires about her. They said the event doesn't have any rules requiring female athletes wearing or not wearing headscarves. However, Iranian women competing abroad under the Iranian flag always wear the hijab.
"Our understanding is that she is returning to Iran, and we will continue to monitor the situation as it develops on her arrival," the International Federation of Sport Climbing, which oversaw the event, said in a statement. "It is important to stress that athletes' safety is paramount for us and we support any efforts to keep a valued member of our community safe in this situation."
The federation said it had been in touch with both Rekabi and Iranian officials, but declined to elaborate. The federation also declined to discuss the Instagram post attributed to Rekabi and the claims in it.
Hundreds killed in protests
Rekabi has finished on the podium three times in the Asian Championships, taking one silver and two bronze medals for her efforts.
So far, human rights groups estimate that over 200 people have been killed in the protests and the violent security force crackdown that followed. Iran has not offered a death toll in weeks. Thousands are believed to have been arrested.
Gathering information about the demonstrations remains difficult, however. Internet access has been disrupted for weeks by the Iranian government. Meanwhile, authorities have detained at least 40 journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have repeatedly alleged the country's foreign enemies are behind the ongoing demonstrations, rather than Iranians angered by Amini's death and the country's other woes.
Iranians have seen their life savings evaporate; the country's currency, the rial, plummet; and Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers has been reduced to tatters.
Big Pharma - Cough Syrups Laced with antifreeze kill 165 children in Indonesia and the Gambia
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Indonesia bans all syrup medicines after 99 child deaths
By Matt Bernardini
Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Indonesia has banned sales of all syrup and liquid medication after 99 children died due to acute kidney injuries this year.
The country's Food and Drug Monitoring Agency said that the suspended medicines were found to contain an ingredient -- ethylene glycol -- in an amount that "exceeds the safe limit."
Ethylene glycol is commonly used to make antifreeze.
Indonesian health officials said they had reported 200 cases of AKI in children, most of whom were under the age of five, according to the BBC.
"Some syrups that were used by AKI child patients under five were proven to contain ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol that were not supposed to be there, or of very little amount," Budi Gunadi Sadikin, Indonesia's Health Minister, said Thursday.
Ethylene glycol, along with diethylene glycol, are typically added as cheap adulterants in propylene glycol, which is used as a solvent in cough syrups. The metabolism of these compounds causes significant liver and kidney damage, according to The Straits Times.
The Gambia
Earlier this month, The World Health Organization issued a global alert over four cough syrups that were linked to the deaths of 66 children in the Gambia.
The organization released the alert for Promethazine Oral Solution, Kofexmalin Baby Cough Syrup, Makoff Baby Cough Syrup and Magrip N Cold Syrup, all made by Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited in Haryana, India.
The WHO said Maiden failed to provide safety guarantees and respond to quality issues surrounding the products.
"Laboratory analysis of samples of each of the four products confirms that they contain unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol as contaminants," the WHO said in a statement.
After the WHO announcement, Maiden was ordered to stop all manufacturing activities.
Indonesian authorities said the cough syrups used in The Gambia were not sold locally.
One epidemiologist said the true death toll could be even higher than reported.
"When cases like these happen, [what we know is] the tip of the iceberg, which means there could be far more victims," Dicky Budiman, an epidemiologist from Griffith University told BBC Indonesia.
Indonesian authorities have so far not disclosed the brands or types of syrup medicines linked to sick children - instead just temporarily banning the sale and prescription of all syrup and liquid medicines.
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Corruption is Everywhere > Suu Kyi's sentence up to 26 years now
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Myanmar junta extends jail terms for Suu Kyi, Japanese journalist
Author: AFP|
Update: 12.10.2022 15:20
RTL
A Myanmar junta court has added another six years to ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi's prison sentence / © AFP/File
Myanmar's junta on Wednesday jailed a Japanese journalist arrested while filming an anti-coup protest for three more years for violating immigration law, a diplomatic source told AFP.
The sentence came on the same day a closed junta court handed ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi another six years in prison for corruption, according to a source with knowledge of the case, taking the Nobel laureate's total jail time to 26 years.
Toru Kubota, 26, who was detained in July and jailed for seven years last week, was sentenced to an additional "three years imprisonment", a diplomatic source at Japan's embassy said, citing the journalist's lawyer.
Myanmar's junta has clamped down on press freedoms, arresting reporters and photographers, as well as revoking broadcasting licences during its crackdown on dissent since seizing power last year.
Kubota, who was arrested near an anti-government rally in commercial hub Yangon along with two Myanmar citizens, appeared in good health at the hearing on Wednesday, the source said, citing his lawyer.
According to a profile on FilmFreeway, Kubota has made documentaries on Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority and "refugees and ethnic issues in Myanmar".
Kubota is the fifth foreign journalist to be detained in Myanmar, after US citizens Nathan Maung and Danny Fenster, Robert Bociaga of Poland and Yuki Kitazumi of Japan -- all of whom were later freed and deported.
Before the sentence was announced, junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told AFP that Kubota "would not be deported at this moment", without giving details.
Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director at Human Rights Watch, said Kubota was being used as a "political pawn" by the junta.
"By imprisoning Kubota, the junta is sending a chilling message to the foreign media to enter at your own risk," he said.
- 'Sham trial' -
Suu Kyi, 77, has been detained since the military toppled her government in a coup in February last year, ending the Southeast Asian country's brief period of democracy.
She has since been convicted on a clutch of charges, including violating the official secrets act, electoral fraud and illegally possessing walkie-talkies.
In the latest case, Suu Kyi was "sentenced to three years imprisonment each for two corruption cases" in which she had been accused of taking bribes from a businessman, the source said.
These jail terms will be served concurrently, the source added.
The businessman, Maung Weik, appeared in a video televised by a military broadcaster last year claiming he had given Suu Kyi $550,000 over several years.
Maung Weik -- who was convicted of drug trafficking in 2008 -- also said he had donated money to senior figures in Suu Kyi's government for the good of his business.
Suu Kyi -- who denies all charges against her -- appeared in good health and will appeal, the source added.
She is currently on trial for five other corruption charges. Each carries a maximum of 15 years in prison.
A spokesperson for Amnesty International slammed the latest trial as a sham that "cannot be taken seriously".
A junta spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Journalists have been barred from attending the court hearings and Suu Kyi's lawyers banned from speaking to the media.
In June, she was transferred from house arrest to a prison in the capital Naypyidaw, where her trials are being held in a courthouse inside the prison compound.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military seized power, sparking widespread armed resistance.
The junta has responded with a crackdown that rights groups say includes razing villages, mass extrajudicial killings and airstrikes on civilians.
More than one million people have been displaced since the coup, according to the United Nations children's agency.
According to a local monitoring group, more than 2,300 people have been killed and over 15,000 arrested since the military seized power.
Covid-19 > Boston U finds way to make Covid-19 much more deadly
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More lethal strain of COVID created in Boston University lab
By Louis Casiano, Fox News
October 17, 2022 5:55pm Updated
Researchers at Boston University say they have developed a new COVID strain that has an 80% kill rate following a series of similar experiments first thought to have started the global pandemic that began in China.
The variant, a combination of Omicron and the original virus in Wuhan, killed 80% of the mice infected with it, the university said. When mice were only exposed to Omicron, they experienced mild symptoms.
The research was conducted by a team of scientists from Florida and Boston at the school’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories.
They extracted the spike protein from Omicron and attached it with the strain first detected at the onset of the pandemic that began in Wuhan, China. They then documented how the mice reacted to the hybrid strain.
“In…mice, while Omicron causes mild, non-fatal infection, the Omicron S-carrying virus inflicts severe disease with a mortality rate of 80 percent,” they wrote in a research paper.
The new strain has five times more infectious virus particles than the Omicron variant, researchers said.
COVID-19 was first detected to have come from a wet market in Wuhan, though many believe the virus was engineered at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The World Health Organization continues to face criticism for its handling of the crisis in its early, most pivotal, days.
The Omicron variant is highly transmissible, even in those who are fully vaccinated. The spike protein is responsible for rates of infectivity, according to researchers, other changes to the virus’ structure determine its deadliness.
One limitation to the study was the breed of mice used, as other types are more similar to humans.
Nice of Boston U to show our insane enemies how to build a much more deadly virus. What madness!
Tuesday, October 11, 2022
American Politics > Tulsi Gabbard Quits the Democratic Party
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Tulsi Gabbard abandons the Democratic Party
In 1 minute and 19 seconds on Twitter, Tulsi Gabbard announced that she is
abandoning the Democratic Party
The only Democrat with a sense of reality, integrity, and conscience is leaving the party that has abandoned all of those character traits. Truth, the First Casualty of War, has been dead in the far-left party for a long time as it leans further and further to the left, and further and further from God.
Note which candidate is leaning the farthest to the left. Klobuchar and Warren both seem to be listing slightly
to port, while Gabbard stands straight along with the two old geezers who seem to be struggling just to stand.
Gabbard, like Trump, is not being controlled by Deep State. Most everyone else in the Dems is. As a consequence, Hillary Clinton accused Tulsi of being a Russian asset because she hasn't bought into the NATO/USA proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Nor has she bought into the false flag chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
Hillary is probably right when she suggests Tulsi may be about to form a new political party. After all, the old-line parties seem to have sold their souls to the devil, the weapons-manufacturing oligarchs of America.
Economics - IMF predictions for 2023 - They're not pretty
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IMF downgrades global economy outlook for 2023
Measures made around the world to curb post-pandemic inflation will make 2023
'feel like a recession'
The Associated Press ·
Posted: Oct 11, 2022 12:32 PM ET
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington, U.S., in this 2018 file photo. On Tuesday, the IMF downgraded its 2023 outlook for the world economy. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)
The International Monetary Fund downgraded its 2023 outlook for the world economy, suggesting that next year "will feel like a recession" for many thanks to central bank reactions around the world.
The lending agency of 190 countries said Tuesday morning that global economic growth would be a meagre 2.7 per cent in 2023, down from the 2.9 per cent they'd estimated in July. For comparison, the world economy grew by six per cent in 2021. The IMF cited Russia's war in Ukraine, chronic inflation pressures, punishing interest rates and the lingering consequences of the global pandemic.
"The worst is yet to come," said IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas.
The 2023 growth estimate in Canada thus shrunk to 1.5, down three-tenths of a percentage point from the last estimate made in July. Canada's growth estimate for 2022, meanwhile, fell to 3.3 per cent from July's 3.4 per cent.
The IMF left unchanged the modest 2022 global growth estimate of 3.2 per cent.
Economies stalling
Next year's growth estimate for the United States — Canada's largest trading partner — shrunk to just one per cent. Their economy is stalling, along with those of China and Europe, said Gourinchas.
The 19-country Euro-bloc will grow only 0.5 per cent in 2023 as it reels from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and resulting energy prices, predicted the IMF.
China, a co-founding member of the IMF, was predicted to see the sharpest contraction of 3.2 per cent this year and 4.4 per cent in the next, down from 8.1 per cent in 2021. Business disruptions caused by Beijing's Draconian zero-COVID policy and crack-down on excessive real estate lending will be to blame, said Gourinchas.
Each country is squaring up against the consequences of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, which brought the world economy to a halt and necessitated massive government spending and low borrowing rates. Those measures fuelled a surprisingly quick and quality recovery from the pandemic recession. It comes, however, at a high cost.
A new survey from the Angus Reid Institute suggests the vast majority of Canadians are spending less as prices rise — and most say interest rate increases will negatively affect their finances.
Central banks are today dramatically raising interest rates to stem inflation risk and ease consumer supply chain pressure. Canada's central bank raised its short-term rate five times so far throughout 2022. This risks a sharp economic slowdown and recession.
Likewise, higher borrowing rates in the United States have supported global investment in the country and raised the value of the U.S. dollar, thus making U.S. exports more expensive and heightening inflation pressures world wide.
An overly aggressive U.S. central bank could "drive the world economy into an unnecessarily harsh contraction," said Maurice Obstfeld, a former IMF chief economist who now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.
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Monday, October 10, 2022
Islam - Byzantium - Vikings - This Day in History
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Byzantine emperors called in special forces as personal bodyguards: Vikings
Viktor Vasnetsov, The Invitation of the Varangians: Rurik and his brothers arrive in Staraya Ladoga.
A full 80 % of what anyone needs in a bodyguard is intimidation. Protecting a VIP is easy when no one is attacking them. If you can intimidate any potential assassins from trying to kill you, then you might live a long, full life. The other 20% is having the combat skills to actually fight off anyone who does try to kill you, combined with the loyalty to not actually kill you themselves. With this in mind, the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire (or later, the Byzantine Empire) found the perfect imperial guard by recruiting men from the conquerors of a state to the north: the Kievan Rus. Called Varangians – or “Men of Oath” – the mercenaries who protected the emperor for centuries were descended from Viking warriors.
The soldiers we call Varangians today came south from Scandinavia in the 9th Century to conquer and rule the Kievan Rus, an area that today encompasses parts of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. Despite having settled far from the coastline, the Viking warriors never lost their taste for raiding and plundering. They soon set their eyes on a jewel of a city to the south: Constantinople.
Unfortunately for the raiders, the city’s Theodosian Walls pretty much made any simple raid on the city useless. Even armies with advanced siege technology found it difficult to attack. The Vikings began to raid the countryside instead. The wealthy Byzantines, realizing that all the raiders wanted was to loot and plunder decided to buy them off… and they paid very well.
They paid so well, in fact, that it earned the empire the Vikings’ loyalty. Once they became an ally, they were allowed into the city of Constantinople itself and quickly fell in love with its beauty and grandeur. They began to call it “Miklagard,” the Grand City. As for the promise of adventure, battle and even more looting, the Byzantines had no shortage of enemies.
Once the Vikings’ boats were in the seas surrounding the Byzantine Empire, they went to work. The Vikings helped the empire conquer Crete in 945, then took the fight to the Arabs in the 950s. They were soon the elite warriors of the Byzantine Empire and were called upon for the toughest military adventures the empire had to offer.
When Byzantine General Bardas Phokas rebelled against Emperor Basil II in 988, The Kievan Rus sent 6,000 Norse warriors to Constantinople. When they arrived to meet Phokas in combat, his forces scrambled, the general himself was said to have a stroke, and the Vikings hunted down the rebels and hacked them to pieces.
In the wake of this victory, Basil formed the Varangian Guard, an Imperial Bodyguard composed of just Norse warriors sworn to protect the Byzantine Emperor at any cost. Since they were the emperor’s personal guard, they rarely left the city, but you can’t keep a good Viking down. If trouble on the frontiers of the empire became more than the regular army could handle, the Varangians were sent in to deal with the situation for good.
When Norman invaders threatened southern Italy in 1018, the Varangians were sent to remind them who controlled the area. When Arabs threatened Sicily, the Varangians kicked them off the island. The same went for Bulgarians who invaded the Byzantine-controlled area of Thrace. When everything was bleak for the Byzantines in combat, the Varangians refused to surrender.
Even when Constantinople itself fell to the Ottoman armies of Mehmed the II in 1453, the Varangians fought to the last man to protect the emperor. The Varangian Guard fell alongside the fall of the Byzantine Empire and its final emperor.
Notice there is never any mention of the thousands of women and girls who were raped and murdered by all sides in these endless wars.
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