Category Archives: Fail!

Transplant Brokers in Israel Lure Desperate Kidney Patients to Costa Rica – NYTimes.com

A broker who trades in human organs might seem a difficult thing to find. But Ms. Dorin’s mother began making inquiries around the hospital where she worked, and in short order the family came up with three names: Avigad Sandler, a former insurance agent long suspected of trafficking; Boris Volfman, a young Ukrainian émigré and Sandler protégé; and Yaacov Dayan, a wily businessman with interests in real estate and marketing.

The men were, The New York Times learned during an investigation of the global organ trade, among the central operators in Israel’s irrepressible underground kidney market. For years, they have pocketed enormous sums for arranging overseas transplants for patients who are paired with foreign donors, court filings and government documents show.

via Transplant Brokers in Israel Lure Desperate Kidney Patients to Costa Rica – NYTimes.com.

Dutch man returns Israeli WWII honor after family killed in Gaza | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR

A 91-year-old Dutch man honoured by Israel for shielding a Jew from the Nazis has handed back his medal after six of his relatives were killed in a Gaza air strike.

Henk Zanoli returned his Righteous Among the Nations award to the Israeli ambassador in The Hague this week after an Israeli F-16 destroyed his great niece’s Gaza home, killing all inside.

“It is with great sorrow that I am herewith returning the medal I received as an honor and a token of appreciation from the State of Israel for the efforts and risks taken by my mother and her family in saving the life of a Jewish boy during the German occupation,” Zanoli said in a letter dated Monday.

According to Zanoli’s letter addressed to the Israeli ambassador, the bomb dropped by the Israeli military on July 20 during its massive Gaza offensive, flattened a four-story building at the Bureij Refugee Camp, killing all inside.

“The great-great grandchildren of my mother have lost their grandmother, three uncles, an aunt and a cousin at the hands of the Israeli military,” Zanoli said in the letter, published by liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz and widely circulated in the Dutch media.

via Dutch man returns Israeli WWII honor after family killed in Gaza | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR.

H5N6 bird flu virus found for first time in Vietnam

Veterinary authorities have reported two fresh outbreaks of the highly pathogenic H5N6 bird flu in the northern provinces of Lang Son and Ha Tinh for the first time in Vietnam.

>> Vietnam among 6 Asian countries prone to H7N9 bird flu

>> H7N9 virus more virulent than H5N1, ministry says

The outbreaks occurred in a herd of chickens in Lang Son’s Trang Dinh District and in a flock of ducks in Ha Tinh’s Ky Anh District, the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Veterinary Department said.

On Thursday, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long sent dispatches to the People’s Committees of provinces and cities nationwide, warning about the appearance of the H5N6 bird flu virus strain for the first time in the country.

This extremely toxic virus strain has yet to be proven to transmit from human to human, the ministry said in its notice.

All local authorities should keep a close watch on the fatal strain to detect it soon from poultry, the ministry said.

In a report to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) on August 12, the department said a total of 1980 birds were found susceptible, out of which 950 birds were found to be infected.

A total of 15 deaths were reported and the remaining 1965 birds were destroyed, the report said.

via H5N6 bird flu virus found for first time in Vietnam.

ROTFLMAO Friday! Let the 2016 rumors begin: Sen. Portman heading to New Hampshire | www.journal-news.com

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who has been considering a bid for the presidency in 2016, will speak on Aug. 26 at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire at what organizers are calling an eggs and politics breakfast.

via Let the 2016 rumors begin: Sen. Portman heading to New Hampshire | www.journal-news.com.

Spin News for Freakout Friday – Huge asteroid that ‘could wipe out human life’ heading for Earth, scientists say – The Times of India

They were studying Asteroid 1950 DA, which has a one in 300 chance of hitting the planet on March 16, 2880.

via Huge asteroid that ‘could wipe out human life’ heading for Earth, scientists say – The Times of India.

Gaza death toll hits 1,980 as dozens succumb to war wounds | Maan News Agency

A Ministry of Health official warned Friday that the death toll in Gaza was expected to continue to rise as dozens succumbed to wounds sustained during the offensive and more bodies were recovered under the rubble of homes.

Healthy ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said that the death toll had hit 1,980 on Friday with at least 10,181 injured.

Dozens have been added to the death count despite a fragile calm maintained through back-to-back ceasefires in recent weeks.

Al-Qidra said that many of those injured are still in a critical condition, and are not expected to survive their wounds.

The low survival rate is also due in part to the continued lack of appropriate medical supplies and facilities for injured patients, while 18-hour

daily power cuts and a lack of fuel for generators aggravate the condition of those hospitals still functioning.

via Gaza death toll hits 1,980 as dozens succumb to war wounds | Maan News Agency.

Missouri Unrest Leaves the Right Torn Over Views on Law vs. Order – NYTimes.com

{In the late 1950s and 1960s, Governors and sheriffs in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Arkansas used the terms outside agitators and pinkos/reds/commies (communists) for those who advocated for ending segregated schools, stores, restaurants, rest rooms, buses, theaters, water fountains, as well as laws that kept Black Americans from voting, or seeking employment. So I guess, it is clear which side Sean Hannity is on: allow segregation, use dogs, fire hoses, chains, clubs, guns, gas, and false arrest on anyone who disagrees with official racial biases and profiling}

In much of the conservative news media, the protesters in Ferguson are being portrayed as “outside agitators,” in the words of Sean Hannity, the Fox News host.

via Missouri Unrest Leaves the Right Torn Over Views on Law vs. Order – NYTimes.com.

‘Good Dad’ Dies After Deputy Tases Him, Everyone Who Knew Him Says They Had The Wrong Guy: LAist

Deputies stopped Parker, who was cycling nearby on Luna Road, around 5 p.m. to question him. The Sheriff’s Dept. said in a press release that the deputy there believed that Parker was possibly “under the influence of an unknown substance,” and that he became “uncooperative and combative.”

NBC Los Angeles reported that Parker allegedly fought a female deputy, leaving bruises on her arms, and she tased Parker multiple times. She and another deputy say they struggled with Parker before they handcuffed him and put him the backseat of the patrol car. They noticed that he was sweating and having trouble breathing, so they called a medical aid to treat him, and then they had an ambulance take him to a hospital, where he died.

“That whole story is totally wrong; that’s just not Dante,” Richard Loredo, a former coworker of Parker’s, told Daily Press. “Dante’s not a burglar … You can see how well his kids were raised; he was a good dad. For the police department to portray him like that is … unfair.”

Parker’s father, Darrell Parker, told NBC Los Angeles: “He was a big, gentle guy. So I don’t understand it. I’m at a loss for words. I miss him already.”

Parker is survived by his wife and five children, including four girls from the ages of 8 to 19, and a 5-year-old boy.

The Sheriff’s Dept. is investigating Parker’s death and have arranged for an autopsy to determine the cause of his death.

via ‘Good Dad’ Dies After Deputy Tases Him, Everyone Who Knew Him Says They Had The Wrong Guy: LAist.

‘My wife thinks I will come home in a box’ – and three days later Gaza bomb disposal expert was dead | World | The Guardian

Rahed Taysir al’Hom was buried in the sandy soil of the cemetery of Jabaliya, the rough Gaza neighbourhood where he had grown up, at 1pm on the third day of the ceasefire.

His funeral was quick, attended by a hundred or so mourners, and accompanied by a quick sermon from a white-turbaned cleric, a sobbing father and some shots fired from a Kalashnikov by a skinny teenager.

Two breezeblocks and a ripped piece of cardboard with his name scrawled on it now mark the grave of a personable man with an easy smile, hollow eyes and a quiet intensity that was entirely understandable given his job.

The 43-year-old father of seven lies next to his brother – a Hamas fighter killed in an Israeli air strike two weeks ago. But the al’Hom who died on Wednesday was not a warrior. He was head of the sole bomb disposal unit of Gaza’s northern governorate and his job was to protect several hundred thousand people from the unexploded ordnance that now litters the streets, fields and the rubble of many homes.

Al’Hom, who died when a 500kg bomb he was trying to defuse exploded at 10.30am on Wednesday, was an incidental casualty of a month-long war that no one seems able to stop.

via ‘My wife thinks I will come home in a box’ – and three days later Gaza bomb disposal expert was dead | World | The Guardian.

Israeli Occupation Forces wage campaign of mass arrests in Jerusalem this morning

{Have not yet learned that this type of control cannot go on forever – if for no other reasons than expenses and allocation of personnel – 30% of Israeli’s working as police and military?} Today at dawn the Israeli Occupation Forces launched a campaign of mass arrests all over Jerusalem. They arrested more than 60 Palestinians under the pretext that they participated in protests in solidarity with Gaza and that they threw stones and bottles to the IOF and settlers during clashes.

A large group of Israeli Occupation Forces raided several districts and villages in and around Jerusalem in the early morning, causing the outbreak of clashes with the youth in different areas.

via Israeli Occupation Forces wage campaign of mass arrests in Jerusalem this morning.