Category Archives: Viva!

It’s official: Bolivians reject Morales’ extension

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Bolivian voters have rejected a fourth term for President Evo Morales, according to official referendum results. Opposition supporters have celebrated in La Paz. Morales has said he’ll respect “final” returns.

On jobs, positions, and titles…

Well it’s been a week and a half rather than a week, but I’ve been lost in thought. 

There’s been a lot of talk of things that need to happen in my life and how they need to happen. I can’t really wrap my heart around how terrible it is for me not to really care what others think of what I should be doing. While I realize that my way of seeing things is very different and rather unconventional, but I think now is a good time to hear the tune of my heart. 
I find myself in a place where I can really take a step onto a blank canvas and create what future lies ahead for me.
I’m unsure why there’s such a need for titles and positions for many people. I’m often confused as to why there is a need and desire to be noticed and recognized. I think that for now I’m needing to wrap my head around the fact that for what I must do, I should be more savvy when it comes to being ambitious. Ambition has never really been my forte, however it’s apparent that I must change and really drill the need into my head to become who I need to be. I just don’t want to change too much. Getting lost in the reality of politics and ways of doing things is one of my bigger fears. I’m unsure of what to do exactly, but my heart seems to be set on doing something… we shall see what step(s) I take next.
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Line by line for H7N9…

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My thanks go to the team at the World Health Organization for adding a downloadable line list for avian influenza A(H7N9) virus cases to their website.

This a great addition and will make following the seasonal outbreaks so much easier. 

I don’t know when in 2016 it appeared, I just noticed a referral to it in the latest ProMED post and its seem that both go 2016’s disease outbreak news posts (19-Jan and 10-Feb have attached lists. I had been bemoaning the lack of detail for a while so this really is fantastic.

There don’t seem to be any lists from 2015. Should I push my luck further and ask if any of 2015’s cases will be added to a list retrospectively?

© 2013-2015 Ian M. Mackay. PhD.
This content was originally published at http://bitly.com/1Kas2vY
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Israeli winner of Berlin Film Festival: Israeli government is ‘fascist’

PNN/Bethlehem

Israeli film-director Udi Aloni, 56, who won the top audience at Berlin Film Festival on Saturday, has labelled the Israeli government “fascist” and urged Germany to cease its military support to Israel.

At a Q&A session about his award-winning film Junction 48  hours before being presented with the Panorama Audience Award for best fiction film, Mr Aloni said Germany should stop supporting the “fascist regime of Israel”:

“Merkel does not mention the occupation and sells submarines to Netanyahu to continue such things.”

The 56-year-old also called Israel a “democracy of white people” and added that “in contrast to the [Israeli] prime minister who spreads hatred, my movie spreads love and co-existence.”

By the end of the session, he mentioned the Palestinian hunger-striker Mohammed al-Qiq as an example “non-Jews’ lack of rights in Israel”, saying that Qiq was dying in administrative detention without being accused of committing a crime.

In a response to Aloni’s comments, according to the Israeli Media, the Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev said that Israel should not fund films that slander it, refering to the financial support that Aloni’s film received from Israel’s Culture Ministry.

“Aloni’s statements were a clear proof that artists who subvert the state, defame it and hurt its legitimacy should not be funded by the tax payer. A sane country should not assist slanderers and denouncers who malign it, immediately after drinking from its coffers,” Regev stated.

The Israeli film director later clarified to Channel 10 that his comments “were directed against the Israeli government and not against the country, which I love. In contrast to the prime minister who spreads hatred, my movie spreads love and co-existence.”

Last year, more than 3,000 artists, including some of the country’s most prominent actors and directors, signed a petition against Ms Regev’s policies.

فصهف“Junction 48” – whose is a Arabic-language film that features mostly Palestinian actors – tells the story of a Palestinian rap star and his girlfriend who live near Tel Aviv in the mixed Jewish-Palestinian city of Lod, known until recently as one of the main drug-running centers of the Middle East.

Actress Samar Qupty said it should be easy for Palestinians to identify with the movie, even though it depicts people living lives that are radically different from strict Muslim traditions.

Her character, for example, allows a picture of her face to be used on a poster advertising a hip-hop concert, prompting members of her family to say they plan to injure her if she performs.

“It’s still a revolutionary movie because it doesn’t talk about the way we Palestinians are usually represented in the world,” Qupty said.

“We are representing ourselves by the new generation without trying to prove anything to anyone, with our ‘goods’ and ‘bads’,” she told Reuters in an interview. “We are trying to present what is the real new generation trying to do without making the reality looking any better or any worse.”