Category Archives: Viva!

Migrants add to Australia’s wealth, government report finds

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Migration program will add up to 1% to annual average GDP growth because it limits the economic impact of the ageing population

Skilled migrants are adding to Australia’s wealth and are not living on welfare or robbing local workers of jobs, a new report has found.

Quashing concerns about the need to cut immigration, the joint research by Treasury and the Department of Home Affairs shows it is in fact benefiting the country’s coffers.

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Japan’s Shinzo Abe tipped to resign in June as cronyism scandals take toll

No place to run or hide anymore

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Prime minister’s popularity is at an all-time low and risks damaging his party’s standing in coming elections

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is likely to resign in June after two cronyism scandals sent his approval ratings to an all-time low and risk damaging his party’s fortunes in elections next year, according to one of Japan’s most popular postwar leaders.

Junichiro Koizumi, a flamboyant reformer who was prime minister from 2001-06, told a weekly magazine published on Monday that Abe has found himself in a “dangerous” situation over the scandals, adding: “Won’t he resign around the time the current parliamentary session ends [on 20 June]?”

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A warning to the corrupt: if you kill a journalist, another will take their place | Laurent Richard

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Why kill a journalist if others are waiting to carry on their work? Those who tried to halt Daphne Caruana Galizia’s work in Malta will soon know they failed

You killed the messenger. But you won’t kill the message.

Over the past six months 45 journalists from 15 different countries have been working in secret to complete and publish investigations by the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed on 16 October 2017.

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MJA & EID Journal On The Rise Of Buruli Ulcer In Australia

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Skin Ulceration – Credit CDC

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There is a popular Internet meme which says everything in Australia wants to kill you . . . which isn’t precisely true.  Some things there only want to maim you.  

Or so it seems. 

While there are plenty of indigenous threats, in recent years a little understood skin infection – primarily reported in tropical Africa, Asia, and South America – has been increasingly reported in (often) temperate regions of Australia.  

It is called Buruli ulcer (aka Mycobacterium ulcerans disease), and while the pathogen is known – it is caused by a bacteria from the same family as Tuberculosis and Leprosy – how it is transmitted remains a mystery.

The World Health Organization fact sheet on this disease has just been updated:

Buruli ulcer

(Mycobacterium ulcerans infection)

Fact sheet
Updated April 2018

Key facts

  • Buruli ulcer is a chronic debilitating disease caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans.
  • It often affects the skin and sometimes bone, and can lead to permanent disfigurement and long-term disability.
  • At least 33 countries with tropical, subtropical and temperate climates have reported Buruli ulcer in Africa, South America and Western Pacific regions. In Australia, an increasing number of cases have been reported since 2013.
  • Partial data from 13 countries for 2017 shows 2206 cases compared to 1920 in 2016; Australia and Nigeria reporting most cases.
  • Most patients in Africa are children aged under 15 years and most patients in Australia are adults.
  • The mode of transmission is not known and there is no prevention for the disease.

        (Continue. . . .)

Another mystery surrounding this infection is that cases are becoming more severe.  This from the January 2018 EID Journal.

Research
Increased Severity and Spread of Mycobacterium ulcerans, Southeastern Australia

Alex Y.C. Taiemail.gif , Eugene Athan, N. Deborah Friedman, Andrew Hughes, Aaron Walton, and Daniel P. O’Brien

Author affiliations: Barwon Health, Geelong, Victoria, Australia

Abstract

Reported cases of Mycobacterium ulcerans disease (Buruli ulcer) have been increasing in southeastern Australia and spreading into new geographic areas. We analyzed 426 cases of M. ulcerans disease during January 1998–May 2017 in the established disease-endemic region of the Bellarine Peninsula and the emerging endemic region of the Mornington Peninsula. A total of 20.4% of cases patients had severe disease.

Over time, there has been an increase in the number of cases managed per year and the proportion associated with severe disease. Risk factors associated with severe disease included age, time period (range of years of diagnosis), and location of lesions over a joint. We highlight the changing epidemiology and pathogenicity of M. ulcerans disease in Australia.

Further research, including genomic studies of emergent strains with increased pathogenicity, is urgently needed to improve the understanding of this disease to facilitate implementation of effective public health measures to halt its spread.


Yesterday The Medical Journal of Australia published two articles – a case report and an editorial – on Mycobacterium ulcerans  infection, which you’ll find links to below:

A severe case of Mycobacterium ulcerans (Buruli ulcer) osteomyelitis requiring a below-knee amputation

Michael J Loftus, Nicola Kettleton-Butler, Denton Wade, R Michael Whitby and Paul DR Johnson

Med J Aust 2018; 208 (7): 290-291. || doi: 10.5694/mja17.01158
Published online: 16 April 2018

Tackling the worsening epidemic of Buruli ulcer in Australia in an information void: time for an urgent scientific response

Daniel P O’Brien, Eugene Athan, Kim Blasdell and Paul De Barro

Med J Aust 2018; 208 (7): 287-289. || doi: 10.5694/mja17.00879
Published online: 16 April 2018

 
While M. ulcerans is found in the environment (soil and water), it has also been detected (by PRC) in mosquitoes and other biting insects, and is known to affect small mammals (particularly possums), making for a number of plausible routes of transmission.

If that sounds vaguely familiar, you may recall that armadillos have been linked to the spread of Leprosy in North America (see Video: Florida DOH On The Link Between Armadillos & Leprosy).

While the number of  Australian cases remains small, and the infection can usually be treated with antibiotics (albeit with sometimes serious side effects),  the outcomes are not always positive.

This is also a reminder that vast oceans and long distances are no longer barriers to the spread of infectious diseases, and once exotic pathogens have a way of making inroads into new regions.

Since 1991, Russia has Abandoned 39 Million Hectares of Agricultural Land, New Satellite-Based Study Shows

via aleksey godin

Paul Goble
            Staunton, April 15 – Russian officials acknowledge that since the end of the Soviet Union, Russia has abandoned a great deal of farm land; but a new European Space Agency study shows that it has given up 39 million hectares, an area greater than the size of Germany, and that much of this land is now reverting to forests.
            That limits the possibility that Russia can develop its agriculture rapidly enough to become the export earner many in Moscow hope for or even save villages in areas where large parcels of land have been abandoned (newizv.ru/article/general/15-04-2018/dannye-so-sputnikov-zabroshennye-pahotnye-zemli-v-rossii-prevyshayut-ploschad-germanii).
            One of the reasons the Russian government has undercounted this loss of agricultural land is that it only counts land as being lost if its owners have made a declaration to that effect. In many cases, the owners simply stop using the land as it had been exploited. The new study, which includes a map, fills in the gap.
            The Russian Federation is not the only post-Soviet state to have abandoned farmland since 1991. According to the study, the other countries in this region have lost 20 million hectares, and consequently, they too are less well-positioned agriculturally than there were a quarter of a century ago and more reliant on imports. 

Sepia Photo #photography #familyhistory

penned in moon dust

no one left to tell me
who or where you are

time dated by your dressing

the link is just too far

empty eyes are seeking

too distant is the past

surely no one speaking

sepia  crinkled fast

Have you ever held a photo that you knew had held importance but you had no idea what it was? The people who were in the photo were long gone and you kept  it to try to hold the memory for someone long gone.

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This Week in Egypt: Week 15 -2018 ( April 9-15)

Nervana

Top Headlines

  • Egypt to extend state of emergency for three months
  • Egypt denies it hindered Ethiopian dam talks
  • Egypt armed forces foil ‘terrorist’ plot in central Sinai
  • Egypt and UAE launch joint military exercise in Red Sea
  • Egypt military court sentences 36 people to death over deadly 2017 church bombings
  • Egypt receives 1st Russian flight after 2 year hiatus
  • Egypt and Cyprus discuss Turkish challenges to gas exploration

 

Arab Summit 2018

Arab Summit 2018 in Saudi Arabia

Main Headlines

 Monday

Tuesday

  • Egypt military court sentences 36 people to death over deadly 2017 church bombings
  • Egypt’s Sisi discusses regional developments…

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May has tied us to Donald Trump. She must face the consequences | Polly Toynbee

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The missile attack on Syria was a pointless, dangerous gesture. If given the chance, MPs must vote to condemn it

Mission accomplished!” The presidential tweet was beyond ominous, reprising as it did George W Bush’s ill-fated banner 15 years ago. As his Iraq war dragged on its bloody course, Bush later admitted it had “conveyed the wrong message”. Now Trump’s crass ignorance of history should serve as a warning he may be destined, or “locked and loaded”, to repeat it.

Theresa May has tied this country to his fickle whims. Inside Donald Trump’s circus, war breaks out between James “Mad Dog” Mattis, the defence secretary who emerges as the sanest in that shape-shifting entourage, and Trump’s terrifying new national security adviser, John Bolton, who reportedly wanted to bomb the hell out of Iranian forces while they were at it on Friday night, urging the president to cancel the Iran nuclear deal. This is where May’s hand-holding has left us: hitched to these dangerous men. What a political risk she has taken, out there alone, against public opinion both before and after the bombing: an instant Survation poll finds 40% against, 36% in favour. Even more striking, 54% say she was wrong not to consult parliament, with only 30% backing her on that.

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نادية حرحش لمنظمة الحقيقة: أن تكون فلسطينيا يعني ان تكون مقاوما

نادية حرحش

http://ar.truthngo.org/نادية-حرحش-لمنظمة-الحقيقة-أن-تكون-فلسط/

نادية حرحش لمنظمة الحقيقة: أن تكون فلسطينيا يعني ان تكون مقاوم

منظمة الحقيقة- صوت من فلسطين الحرة، شاعرة بروح محمود درويش، نخلة صامدة كصمود الشعب الفلسطيني وياسمينة يعبق عطرها شعراً ونثراً في مواجهة المحتل الباحثة والكاتبة المقدسية نادية حرحش. مُحاضِرة في الشأن الفلسطيني والفلسفة والحضارات العالمية أهلا وسهلا بك معنا في منظمة الحقيقة وكل الشرف لنا بمحاورتك وامتاع قرائنا بقراءة كلمات من نبض الصمود “فلسطين”.

الأستاذة نادية: شكرا جزيلا لكم.

منظمة الحقيقة: أستاذة نادية من منطلق أن منظمة الحقيقة دورها الأول والأخير هو الدفاع عن حقوق الإنسان، والمرأة بالتالي، تشكل محور اهتمامنا، والدفاع عن حقوقها هو هاجسنا المستمر، هل ترين سيدتي ضوء في أخر النفق لحقوق المرأة في العالم العربي؟ وما هي رسالتك التي أردتي ايصالها لنا من خلال رواية “في ظلال الرجال؟ وهل يمكن تحرر الرجل دون تحرر المرأة من السلطة الذكورية في المجتمعات العربية؟

الأستاذة نادية: بما اننا موجودين بداخل نفق ، فلا بد من وجود ضوء…

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The west’s double standards over the bombing of Syria | Letters

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Letters from Dr Paula James, Dr Ghada Karmi, Brigid Keenan, Jane Ghosh and Hazel Davies

It’s Saturday morning and I am watching Theresa May on BBC1 with increasing incredulity. We’ll pass over the fact that there is no secure evidence that Assad has used chemical weapons in an area where Syrian government troops had already won and no questions from journalists about what his motivation could possibly be. Let us focus instead upon the double standards displayed by the UK and the US. The prime minister says the deaths of civilians in Syria cannot be tolerated. The US president states that action must be taken against mass murderers of men, women and children, and nations should be judged by the friends or global company they keep.

May and Trump are supporters of Saudi Arabia, assisting its genocide of the people of Yemen. They remain silent while Israel shoots down unarmed civilians and has deployed white phosphorus in its previous devastating assaults upon Gaza. It is clear to me that we have fostered conflict in Syria for many years, and that, in general, western interventions have only served to destabilise the Middle East. The cost in human life is huge and will not be reduced or stopped by bombing raids from the US and its allies. Theresa May can strike all the Churchillian poses she likes, but this is all about the geopolitics.
Dr Paula James
Chelwood Gate, East Sussex

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