All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

The Gun Report: September 26, 2013 – NYTimes.com

A 31-year-old woman was shot multiple times and killed in a road rage incident in St. Albans, Vt., Wednesday afternoon. Police say the suspect, Matthew Webster, 30, ran a red light and nearly hit another car. The woman driving that car followed him, and when they got out of their cars to confront each other, Webster shot her.

via The Gun Report: September 26, 2013 – NYTimes.com.

No Stand Your Ground in Vermont especially for a MOC – man out of control!

When There’s No Emergency Phone Number, Kenya Tweets For Help · Global Voices

In the last year, Ogola has turned Kenya Red Cross social media into a virtual 911 [emergency phone number in North America], taking in information about emergencies and putting out public safety bulletins, 24 hours a day.

“The information I get online, it’s amazing,” says Ogola. “You get the exact location of where the incident is, you get photos, how many people injured, where, and how far. Previously it was really hard.”

Ogola says he has helped coordinate response to hundreds of emergencies, liaising with social media users on the scene and emergency services countrywide. All with the help of ordinary Kenyans on their mobile phones.

“Kenyans thought, ‘Whoa, I can actually save someone’s life with a touch of a button,’” he says. “And it went viral.”

Here’s how it works: you see an accident, a shooting, or a fire; you tweet, or Facebook, or text Kenya Red Cross. Ogola does a cloud search, scanning social media for photos, location tags or other information on the same incident. Within minutes, he hands it over to first responders on the ground.

“If we get a security tweet we forward it to the police. If we get a fire alert about a building burning, we forward it to the fire brigade, and we call a backup team,” Ogola says. “We have actually become the reporting tool for all kind of incidents. We never had any reporting tool in Kenya.”

via When There’s No Emergency Phone Number, Kenya Tweets For Help · Global Voices.

Estonian doctors successfully used cell stems to restore mobility of a patient’s hand :: The Baltic Course | Baltic States news & analytics

On April 16 this year, a team of doctors of the Hospital of Reconstructive Surgery, headed by surgeon Romek Märtsin, had an operation aimed to give a 18-year-old girl Anett Torri back the ability to move her left hand and use her fingers that had become immobile due to scar tissue after she suffered a severe fire accident when she was 6 years old. She can now, nearly six months after the first operation, freely move the hand that was restricted earlier by a severe scar tissue on her arm, stretch her fingers that were crooked and wrist that was tilted before.

 

The doctors took fat tissue from the patient, which was then processed in a Cytor machine, which separated cell stems from it which were injected to the patient’s hand. The first operation was followed later by a second when fat tissue was added to the hand, which all restored the tissue lost in the fire and softened the scars that restricted the movement of the hand.

 

Dr Romek Märtsin and Dr Andrus Loog, from the Hospital of Reconstructive Surgery, will present the results of the first surgery in Estonia with use of autologic stem cells on Friday, in Pärnu at a symposium “Cell Stem Treatment – Breakthrough in Regenerative Medicine.”

via Estonian doctors successfully used cell stems to restore mobility of a patient’s hand :: The Baltic Course | Baltic States news & analytics.

New Roots Recipes | International Rescue Committee (IRC)

Food that should be banned – it looks so good!

From community garden to kitchen table, New Roots brings together people from around the world to share their talents and interests, histories and heritage—and their love of good, wholesome food.

Explore and share the inventive recipes below, all inspired by the natural bounty and wide-ranging flavors of New Roots.

via New Roots Recipes | International Rescue Committee (IRC).

Orthodox Jews enter Aqsa compound marking Sukkot | Maan News Agency

It seems to be clear that the extreme right – Israeli Tea Party – will not stop until they are excluded or destroy the mosque and rebuild their believed Temple there. A most extreme threat to peace being facilitated by current government of Israel.

Israeli rightists escorted by Israeli police and military officers entered the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, where they were met with shouts of “Allahu Akbar” by Muslim worshipers.

Witnesses told Ma’an that 26 ultra-Orthodox Jews entered the compound in small groups via the Moroccan Gate. They said the visit coincided with the last day of the Jewish Sukkot holiday.

The unwelcome visitors, added the witnesses, moved from the Moroccan Gate (Bab al-Magharibah) to the Golden Gate (Bab al-Rahmah), then to the Cotton Merchants’ Gate (Bab al-Qattanin) before they left from the Chain Gate (Bab al-Silsilah).

Since last Wednesday, more than 700 ultra-Orthodox Jews have entered the compound to celebrate Sukkot.

Palestinian officials in the ministry of endowment said it had been the largest number of Jews entering al-Aqsa Mosque area since the 1980 annexation of Jerusalem.

Separately, hundreds of Israeli settlers toured the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem Thursday performing prayers including dances as they celebrated the Water Libation Ceremony.

via Orthodox Jews enter Aqsa compound marking Sukkot | Maan News Agency.

Garden Fresh Foods Recalling Ready-to-Eat Chicken, Ham Products for Possible Listeria Contamination | Food Safety News

Garden Fresh Foods of Milwaukee, WI, is recalling more than 19,000 pounds of ready-to-eat chicken and ham products due to possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service sent out an announcement about this recall on Wednesday evening.

via Garden Fresh Foods Recalling Ready-to-Eat Chicken, Ham Products for Possible Listeria Contamination | Food Safety News.

Spring no guarantor of good weather later… Minister: Authorities quash plot to carve up Tunisia into 3 Islamic emirates

Tunisia’s interior minister says authorities have dismantled a plot by extremist Salafi Muslims to slice up the North African country into three Islamic emirates.

Lotfi Ben Jeddou also told Mosaique FM radio Wednesday that security services have disrupted jihadist plots in recent weeks to assassinate political figures and carry out bombings in central Tunisia and near the capital, Tunis.

The minister, who took office six months ago, says he’s tallied some 300 arrests in terrorism case files being prosecuted by investigating magistrates.

Ben Jeddou said questioning of detainees led authorities to believe that about 30 alleged terrorists are currently holed up in Tunisia’s western mountains, including Kamel Gadhgadhi, the man suspected of killing left-wing opposition legislator Chokri Belaid in February.

Tunisia has been battling al-Qaida-linked extremists since its 2011 revolution.

via Minister: Authorities quash plot to carve up Tunisia into 3 Islamic emirates.

The ‘truth’ is France’s Roma are France’s problem – not Romania’s | Les blogs

‘Send them back’ where?

 

Back in June 2012 when Valls entered office many thought he might offer a welcome relief to the travelling community. Instead, he has revealed himself as an adherent to Nicolas Sarkozy’s “not our problem” way of thinking.

 

After Valls’s admission of “truth” on Wednesday he went on to defend the government’s razing of Roma camps, which has seen more than 8,000 people made homeless in 2013 alone.

 

Under the flimsy pretence of trying to help, the government has been putting homeless Roma on flights to Romania and Bulgaria with 300 euros cash-in-hand. The initiative, launched in 2005 and accelerated by then president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2010, has been criticised not only as totally irresponsible but also as a total waste of money.

 

Some 10,000 people are flown back and paid off each year, but most of them admit to having no plans of staying in Bucharest, where they face abuse and discrimination worse than in France. The Roma deportees my colleagues spoke to on arrival in the Romanian capital admitted that they would be making their way straight back to France with the 300 euros pocketed.

 

France’s Roma population has remained stable – between 15,000 and 20,000 – for years (it is not spiralling or booming, as scaremongers would have you think).

 

A people who have spent decades here, who speak the language, who identify as French, and who are EU citizens, cannot be brushed off as somebody else’s problem.

Instead of promising to get rid of the “Roma problem” ahead of municipal elections next year, Valls and his peers should be thinking up new ways to integrate this vulnerable group. Razing their homes and deporting them is only going to lead to more homelessness, poverty, and – inevitably – crime. And that’s not an election promise anyone wants to buy into.

via The ‘truth’ is France’s Roma are France’s problem – not Romania’s | Les blogs.

USDA Misinforms Parents Re: Chinese-Processed Chicken in School Meals | Civil Eats

In my opinion, though, parents ought to be far more worried about the possible lifting of the export ban on Chinese-raised and -slaughtered rawpoultry.  If raw Chinese poultry enters this country and becomes reliably cheaper than domestic poultry, its use in school food could become widespread under the second exception to the “Buy American” rule noted above.  (And, at any rate, raw Chinese poultry could always be used, up to 49%, in manufactured food items regardless of cost.)  Given that some Chinese poultry farmers allegedly used large quantities of illegal drugs in raising chickens sold to KFC, and given the potential vulnerability of young school children eating such chicken, a lifting of the export ban on raw Chinese poultry is a cause for serious concern.

In the meantime, is FSIS intentionally misleading the public on this issue?  I can’t know, of course, but I suspect that in the rush to quell concerns about the August 30th announcement, the FSIS simply failed to vet its school food Q & A with the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, the branch of the agency overseeing child nutrition programs.  Regardless of motive, however, my own questioning of the agency (which began a full two weeks ago) has clearly brought the inaccuracy to its attention — yet, as of this writing, the original statement remains on its website.

via USDA Misinforms Parents Re: Chinese-Processed Chicken in School Meals | Civil Eats.