All posts by nedhamson

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

H7N9: ECDC Epidemiological Update – April 26th

Since 31 March 2013, one hundred and twelve (112) cases of human infection with avian influenza A(H7N9) virus have been reported from eight provinces in eastern China. Onset of disease has been between 19 February and 18 April 2013 in: Zhejiang (44), Shanghai (33), Jiangsu (24), Henan (4), Anhui (4), Beijing (1), Shandong (1) and Taiwan (1). The date of disease onset is currently unknown for fourteen patients.

 

Most cases have developed severe respiratory disease. Twenty three patients have died (case-fatality ratio=21%). The median age is 62 years with a range between 4 and 91 years; 33 out of 112 patients are female.

 

The Chinese health authorities are responding to this public health event by enhanced surveillance, epidemiological and laboratory investigation and contact tracing. The animal health sector has intensified investigations into the possible sources and reservoirs of the virus. The authorities reported to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) that avian influenza A(H7N9) was detected in samples from pigeons, chickens and ducks, and in environmental samples from live bird markets (‘wet markets’) in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang provinces. Authorities have closed markets and culled poultry in affected areas.

via H7N9: ECDC Epidemiological Update – April 26th.

Open Letter To Mark Zuckerberg – You Can’t Have Power Without Responsibility

Pride's Purge

(Satire? I’m not really sure anymore)

Dear Mr Zuckerberg,

I hope you don’t mind me writing to you like this. I’m no-one very important – just one of the 1.06 billion little people who actively use your website every month.

Actually I’m one of those little people who happens to like writing satire – political satire to be precise – but I think perhaps I ought to explain to you exactly what that means because you seem to have got satirists like me mixed up with those horrible spammer people who like to spam.

So please allow me to help you out with some definitions:

SPAM
(noun) A canned meat product made mainly from ham.
(verb) To send the same electronic message indiscriminately to large numbers of recipients on the internet generally for financial gain.

SATIRE
(noun) The use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule or exaggeration to expose, denounce or deride vice, folly…

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IRIN Global | Europe’s undocumented migrants struggle to access healthcare | Global | Health & Nutrition | HIV/AIDS (PlusNews) | Human Rights

IRIN Global | Europe’s undocumented migrants struggle to access healthcare | Global | Health & Nutrition | HIV/AIDS (PlusNews) | Human RightsEurope’s financial crisis and rising xenophobia are complicating access to medical treatment for undocumented migrants, according to a new report by the international NGO Médecins du Monde (MdM). 


“Soaring unemployment rates, rising child poverty, people losing their homes because of insolvency every month… The social systems in Europe are quaking under the strain,” the authors say. “The crisis has generated austerity measures that have had a deep impact on all social safety nets, including healthcare provision.” 

“The economic crisis, rising unemployment and lower levels of social protection all too often lead to the finger being pointed at groups that were already facing social exclusion before the crisis, eg, sex workers, migrants and Roma [a marginalized ethnic community,” they added. 

Comparing Beirut To Dubai

Spin does not really change reality – people in Lebanon will have to do that themselves… As this essay shows

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

An American writer for the Huffington Post wrote an article today titled: “Thank you, Beirut. Your Friend, Dubai” in which she basically paralleled the rise of Dubai to the gradual decline and possible near-demise (never ever?) of Beirut.

The writer’s opinion of the Lebanese capital was favorable – even favorable of the go-to Lebanese scarecrow for Americans Hezbollah, trying to explain its popularity among many Lebanese and the reason for its increasing political strength.

In typical fashion, Lebanese across the internet have been sharing the article fervently. It’s about Lebanon. It’s about Beirut. It’s by a very prominent publication. Click, click away.

However, the question I want to ask is the following: is comparing and contrasting Beirut to Dubai warranted?

I, for one, think drawing similarities between the two cities is comparing apples to oranges for the following reasons:

1) Beirut was never made out of money. When you talk…

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The Genocide They Want Removed From Our Collective Memory

My mother was born in 1905 and when she did not want to eat something offered at the family dinner from the time she was 10. she was told: “Think of the starving Armenians! Eat what is one your plate and be thankful you have something to eat.” She used the same warning with my brother and I. But many have forgotten and the people of Turkey would really like you to forget.

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

I imagine life would have been much different for me had my last name ended with -ian. I’d have come from a very different place than the one I currently come from. I would have spoken yet another language.  I would have grown up listening to stories that morphed into darker and darker territory as I grew older: stories told by my grandparents, stories of my friend’s great grandparents, stories of entire families and homes and communities and towns and cities that exist no more today.

If I were Armenian, I’d have been an immensely proud person of those people who are the reason I am here today, the people who defied the cold, the heat, the hunger and the systematic killing at the hand of a ruthless sultan, the people whose stories would give me strength, enriching my view of the world, making it more and more certain each…

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Maasai Women Taking Bold Stance to Protect Land Rights

More than 2,000 Maasai women are taking a bold political stand in a move aimed at protecting community land rights.

From the 27th of March until the 7th of April,women gathered in Magaiduru village, one of the nine villages in Loliondo Division that has recently been declared by the government as a wildlife corridor, essentially prohibiting any future use of the lands by the local communities. The women – some of whom walked more than a day and half to reach Magaiduru – gathered to protest this decision and to collectively demand that the land in Loliondo be returned to the communities.

“Women are gathering and demonstrating because without land there is no life for them,” explains Maanda Ngoitiko, Executive Director of the Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC). “They’ve been empowered over the years, and have deep knowledge about what is happening and are therefore are not willing to sit quietly as their livelihoods are stolen away from them.”

via Maasai Women Taking Bold Stance to Protect Land Rights.

Lebanon’s New War of the Bearded Enemies

Pray for Lebanon that the majority choose to not follow these two into what would be an even more bitter civil war that would leave the nation in tatters.

Nervana

Assir photo

Nasrallah

 

 

 

 

 

There was nothing more perplexing and confusing than watching the unfolding events of the Lebanese civil war. It was ruthless, ugly, and dirty, and it taught me as well as many Arabs the harsh reality that had been hidden under the veneer of elegance and glamour of Lebanon. Although the civil war was essentially a Christian versus Muslim conflict, the Lebanese Muslim religious identity politics of the ’70s and ’80s was different than what we are familiar with today. There were no religious slogans, no Takbeer, no black flags, and even no beards, with one exception: the Shiite group Hezbollah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah, the man who introduced Lebanese political Islam to the wider Arab world.

For a long period, Nasrallah succeeded in transitioning his party from a small Shiite group to the most dominant party on the Lebanese messy political scene. He…

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The Ghosts Behind Egypt’s Sectarian Violence

I am not afraid of no ghosts! Come out in open ghosts or are you afraid?

Egyptian Streets

 

Sectarian violence has once again gripped the hearts and minds of Egyptians, following the tragic deaths of seven on the outskirts of Cairo. The small town of Kossous was shaken after its streets were left bloodied and littered with smashed cars, burnt-out shops, and shattered glass.

Yet the violence, which left mothers without their children, and daughters without their fathers, is not the first to challenge Egyptian society. For the past few decades, hundreds of Egyptians – mainly Coptic Christians – have been killed amid heightened tensions between Muslims and Christians.

The violence which impacts thousands of Egyptian lives each year is a mystery. The media is quick to show flashing images of rock-throwing, gun-fire, burning cars, and men carrying their comrades to safety, but a few days later Egyptians are left with no solution. The screams of those who were injured, the cries of the mothers of those…

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India: New, dangerous method for artifically ripening mangoes

India: New, dangerous method for artifically ripening mangoes

A team of officials seized five tonnes of mangoes from several mandis in Erode and Salem which were allegedly ripened in an artificial manner on Friday.

Unusually, the mangoes had not been ripened using calcium carbide, as is normally the case. On this occasion the rogue fruits had been brought to maturity with a pesticide called ethiron.

FSSA enforcement officer Dr R S Ramesh, food inspectors Bubalan, Muthukrishnan, and Corporation health officer Dr Aruna were responsible for seizing the mangoes whilst enforcing protocol in a number of markets.

“Around 3 tonnes of mangoes were seized and sent to the corporation compost yard at Vendipalayam to be destroyed. The residue of the pesticide sprayed on the mangoes would cause digestion and other problems to consumers,”  Dr Ramesh said.

Officials say this method has come into use since calcium practices were placed under the spotlight.

“Health officials will continue their raids on mango mandis and take necessary action on traders who resort to such techniques. If they continue to violate the norms, stern action will be taken against them.”

Officials report that the traders have been notified of the health reasons behind the legislation.

via India: New, dangerous method for artifically ripening mangoes.