Archive for News

Thank you, conservative government

{ September 16, 2009 @ 4:05 pm } · { Health, News }
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*Errr…WOW.*

OTTAWA – Chiefs in northern Manitoba are not impressed with Ottawa’s most recent shipment of materials to prepare for an expected H1N1 influenza outbreak: body bags.

At least four first nations in northern Manitoba were sent body bags in shipments of supplies from Health Canada intended for the H1N1 influenza.

Garden Hill Chief David Harper said the nursing station in Wasagamack got 30 body bags and God’s Lake received 20 of them, along with boxes of hand sanitizer wipes and masks. Body bags were also included in shipments to Garden Hill and St. Theresa Point, but Harper said the number was unknown.

Harper said this is an offensive action from Health Canada.

“This says to me they’ve given up,” he said.

Harper said normally the RCMP always have a few body bags in their offices on reserve but the nursing station has not received them before.

Manitoba NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis was incredulous and planned to ask the Health Committee this afternoon for an immediate investigation for the “callous, insensitive and incompetent” action.

“It’s unbelievable,” she said. “It’s the ultimate expression of incompetence from Health Canada.”

She said Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq won’t support the shipments of flu kits and her department took weeks to send hand sanitizer in the spring but now they are sending body bags.

“This is a time of worry and anxiety already and for Health Canada to respond in this way gets to the heart of what the chiefs have been saying about them all along.”

A spokeswoman for Aglukkaq said the minister could be ready to respond to this at a news conference scheduled in Ottawa on H1N1 this afternoon.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Ottawa-ships-body-bags-to-northern-Manitoba-reserves-59489677.html

Girl Rejects Gardasil, Loses Path to Citizenship

{ September 11, 2009 @ 7:09 pm } · { Health, News }
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*UGH UGH UGH UGH*

Teen Asks Why She Should Take Vaccine If She is Not Having Sex, Worries About Dangers

Born in Britain in 1992, Simone Davis got off to a rough start in life. Her biological mother abandoned her as a baby, and her father couldn’t care for her.

At 3, Simone was adopted by her paternal grandmother, Jean Davis, who married an American in 2000 and moved them to Port St. Joe, Fla.

But because the adoption was not recognized in the United States, Davis embarked on a near-decade quest to get Simone U.S. citizenship.

Now 17 and an aspiring elementary school teacher and devout Christian, Simone has only one thing standing in the way of her goal — the controversial vaccine Gardasil.

Immigration law mandates that Simone get the vaccine to protect against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, which has been linked to cervical cancer.

But Simone, who has taken a virginity pledge and is not sexually active, doesn’t see why she should have to take the vaccine, especially since it’s been under fire recently regarding its safety .

And none of her American classmates is mandated by law to be vaccinated.

“I am only 17 years old and planning to go to college and not have sex anytime soon,” said Simone. “There is no chance of getting cervical cancer, so there’s no point in getting the shot.”

Since 2008, the government has required that female immigrants between the ages of 11 through 26 applying for permanent resident or refugee status receive Gardasil, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2006.

Simone and her adoptive mother she still calls “Nanny” sought a waiver for moral and religious reasons and were recently rejected by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

That ruling threatens to separate Simone and Davis, and could dash the teen’s plans to attend Pensacola Christian College, where she was conditionally accepted.

They were given 30 days to appeal or the teen would face being “removed.”

The 1996 Immigration and Naturalization Act requires girls and women within a specified age group to receive the vaccination against certain specified diseases “and any other vaccinations recommended by the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices.

Gardasil was added to the list of vaccines in 2008.

“The decision to include HPV as a required vaccine was made by the CDC,” said Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Chris Rhatigan.

“We follow the law,” she told ABCNews.com. “The objection to a waiver would have to be to all vaccines, not just Gardasil.”

The CDC is expected to publish new criteria to determine which vaccines should be recommended for U.S. immigrants in about a month, according to spokeswoman Christine Pearson.

Simone’s struggle began in 2000, when U.S. authorities did not recognize the British adoption papers, and the process began anew.

“We never heard from her mother again after she sent a third birthday card, and was never given a contact address,” said Jean Davis, who is now 63, divorced, and a teacher. “I had no idea where she was.”

The Salvation Army Missing Person’s Bureau traced Simone’s biological mother, and the American adoption was finalized in 2006.

Local churches helped pay more than $1,700 immigration application fees for Simone’s permanent residency status, the first step toward citizenship. For another $585, Davis can appeal, but says she doesn’t have the money.

Citizenship Dashed by Gardasil

If Simone does not become a permanent resident by her 18th birthday in January, she willl have to reapply as an adult and wait five years before she can even be eligible for citizenship.

“I kind of feel like they may be experimenting with immigrants to see how we will react and then give the vaccine to citizens,” said Simone. “I told Nanny that if it is such a great vaccine, why isn’t it mandatory for everyone?”

Gardasil must be administered before the age of 26 to be effective, according to FDA guidelines. It protects against HPV types 6, 11, 16 and 18. Almost 70 percent of cervical cancer cases and 90 percent of genital warts are linked to these four strains.

About 12,000 women a year are diagnosed with cervical cancer, which kills about 4,000 annually, according to the CDC.

The vaccine can cause fainting, redness and inflammation at the site and fever. The most dangerous side effect, which has alarmed some gynecologists, is an increase in blood clots, which, according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), may have caused 32 unconfirmed deaths.

In an accompanying editorial, the journal complained about the lack of concrete evidence that the vaccine is effective.

When Gardasil was added to the vaccine list last year, it drew anger and protests from immigration advocates, who argued that it placed an unfair financial burden on women. A three-shot series of the vaccine can cost between $300 and $1,400.

Some health care policy experts suggested the requirement was excessive and unnecessary. Of the 14 required vaccines, 13 are designed to combat infectious diseases that are considered highly contagious. But Gardasil targets a virus spread through sexual contact.

Though 18 states are currently debating whether to make the vaccine mandatory, none, so far, require it.

“I am most definitely surprised and I would love to know how it ever became policy,” said Dr. Jacques Moritz, director of gynecology at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. “I wonder if the drug company could have had any influence.”

“It’s a voluntary vaccine, and for the U.S. government to make it a mandatory decision to come to this country is crazy,” he told ABCNews.com. “It has no public health value that has been shown.”

Merck & Co., which makes Gardasil, said it had no involvement in the enactment of the mandate.

“Merck recognizes that many individuals and groups are concerned over this requirement and emphasizes that, while we encourage all women to be educated about HPV-related diseases, the company does not support mandatory vaccination of new female immigrants,” said Merck spokeswoman Pam Eisele.

The company said it has an “extensive and ongoing” safety-monitoring program and does not believe that reported deaths have been caused by Gardasil.

“Nothing is more important to Merck than the safety of our medicines and vaccines,” she told ABCNews.com. “We are confident in the safety profile of Gardasil.

The company garnered $1.4 billion in sales last year. According to the business publication Medical Marketing and Media, the company has “captured lightning in a bottle” with its direct-to-consumer marketing to mothers and their daughters, encouraging them to talk to their doctors about protection from HPV.

Just this week, an advisory panel recommended that the FDA allow doctors to prescribe Gardasil to boys and men ages 9 to 26 to help prevent genital warts, which have been linked to the transmission of HPV.

Moritz, himself, has chosen not to have his 11-year-old daughter vaccinated, as long as good cervical cancer screening tests, like the Pap smear, exist.

“I’m pro-preventing cervical cancer,” he told ABCNews.com. “But I’m not that pro that the physicians don’t know the risks and side effects.”

But Dr. Mark Einstein, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center in New York, disagrees.

“Every scientific stakeholder has advocated for use of this vaccine,” he told ABCNews.com. “The more serious side effects may not be vaccine related. The most recent report in the JAMA was positive, reinforcing the safety of a vaccine that been delivered to 26 million in the U.S.”

Einstein said cervical cancer was “not just a Third World Disease.” American women are struck in their “reprodictive prime,” and radiation treatments can cause sexual dysfunction and child-bearing problems.

“I have a busy clinical schedule,” said Einstein. “The death rate is low because the treatments are very effective. But the treatments are toxic and have very serious side effects through life.

“We have a lot of opportunity to prevent [cervical cancer] before it happens and shift the future of a disease,” he said.

Einstein also debunks Simone’s claim that she doesn’t need the vaccine because she is not having sex.

“Quite frankly, from a science standpoint and outreach, everyone does ultimately as an adult have sex,” he said.

But her adoptive mother, Jean Davis, said the issue is about more than chastity.

“All we want is the rights of a U.S. citizen,” said Davis, who has scoured the Internet for research on Gardasil and sent letters to all her political leaders, including the president. “It’s not mandatory for them to get this. That’s our objection.

“My choice to make an informed decision for the health of my child has been taken away,” she told ABCNews.com. “I have been like a crazy woman, I have been so upset about this. I am really in a panic.”

“How can they call this America, the land of the free?” she asked. “Where are my parental rights?”

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ReproductiveHealth/gardasil-vaccine-roadblock-citizenship/story?id=8542051

Military choppers conduct exercises over Montreal

{ September 11, 2009 @ 4:51 pm } · { News }
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MONTREAL – Don’t be alarmed if you see military helicopters flying over downtown Montreal.

Two Canadian Forces CH-146 Griffon helicopters from the 427th Special Operations Aviation Squadron have begun three evenings of training manoeuvres, from Wednesday to Friday night.

Flying from the St. Hubert airport, the choppers will approach Complexe Desjardins (at Ste. Catherine and Bleury Sts.) from various directions and hover over the building for brief periods between 6 p.m. and midnight to practise night approaches to high-rise buildings.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Military%2Bchoppers%2Bdowntown%2Bexercise/1977208/story.html

Ancient skeletons discovered in Georgia threaten to overturn the theory of human evolution

{ September 10, 2009 @ 11:31 am } · { News, Science }
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For generations, scientists have believed Africa was the cradle of mankind.

Now a stunning archaeological discovery suggests our primitive ancestors left Africa to explore the world around 800,000 years earlier than was previously thought before returning to their home continent.

It was there – hundreds of thousands of years later – that they evolved into modern humans and embarked on a second mass migration, researchers say.

Astonishing discovery: Archaeologists have unearthed six ancient skeletons dating back 1.8 million years in the hills of GeorgiaAstonishing discovery: Archaeologists have unearthed six ancient skeletons dating back 1.8 million years in the hills of Georgia

Archaeologists have unearthed six ancient skeletons dating back 1.8 million years in the hills of Georgia which threaten to overturn the theory of human evolution.

The Georgian bones  – which include incredibly well preserved skulls and teeth – are the earliest humans ever found outside Africa.

The remains belong to a race of short early humans with small primitive brains who walked and ran like modern people.

They were found alongside stone tools, animal remains and plants – suggesting that they hunted and butchered meat.

Professor David LordkipanidzeProfessor David Lordkipanidze with one of the skulls from the Georgia site
mapArchaeologists now believe that our ancestors left for Europe at least 1.8million years ago, before returning to Africa and developing into Homo Sapiens

Prof David Lordkipanidze, the direct of the Georgian National Museum, said: ‘Before our findings, the prevailing view was that humans came out of Africa almost 1million years ago, that they already had sophisticated stone tools, and that their body anatomy was quite advanced in terms of brain capacity and limb proportions. But what we are finding is quite different’

He said Africa was still the unchallenged cradle of mankind. But he added: ‘Georgia may have been the cradle of the first Europeans.’

Their discovery muddies the already complicated history of mankind.

Archaeologists believe that the first true humans – a race of squat people called Homo habilis – evolved in Africa around 2.5 million years ago. The were followed by a taller athletic species called Homo erectus who migrated out of Africa to colonise Europe and Asia.

Outside Africa their descendents are thought to have died out. But in Africa, they turned into modern man who began a second wave of migration around 120,000 years ago.

The new finds suggest Homo erectus left Africa far earlier than was previously estimated and lived for a while in Eurasia.

Dmanisi Three skulls all found at the Dmanisi site

The new ancestors – found in Dmanisi – were around 150cm tall, and had brains half the size of modern people’s.

‘While the Dmanisi people were almost modern in their body proportions, and were highly efficient walkers and runners, their arms moved in a different way and their brains were tiny compared to ours,’ he told the British Science Festival at Surrey University.

‘Their brain capacity is about 600 cubic centimetres. The prevailing view before this discovery was that the humans who first left Africa had a brain size of about 1,000 cubic centimetres.

‘Nevertheless they were sophisticated tool makers with high social and cognitive skills.’

The first Dmanisi fossils were found in 2001. The most recent has only just been unearthed and its details have yet to be published in a scientific journal.

Prof Lordkipanidze said the Dmanisi bones may have belonged to an early  Homo erectus which lived in Georgia before moving on to the rest of Europe.

Or the early humans may then have returned to Africa, eventually giving rise to our own species, Homoe sapiens, he said.

‘The question is whether Homo erectus orginated in Africa or Eurasia, and if in Eurasia, did we have vice-versa migrations? This idea looked very stupid a few years ago, but not today,’ he told the British Science Festival.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1212060/Ancient-skeletons-discovered-Georgia-threaten-overturn-theory-human-evolution.html?ITO=1490#

Ten Things You Can Do to Start a Community Garden

{ September 10, 2009 @ 11:26 am } · { Health, News }
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Spiraling food prices and concerns over where food comes from have consumers looking for alternatives to what’s in their supermarket produce bins. Community gardens help people band together to gain control of their own food. Rebecca Hart, an avid Nation reader and Portland, Oregon-area resident, has spent twenty years acquiring the expertise in horticulture to become a certified master gardener. Here are her suggestions for starting a community garden in your neighborhood.

Community Gardening resources by city or state. If you have one you would like to see here, please send it to NationTenThings@gmail.com.

Washington state: For a comprehensive list of garden resources and grants, see Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington or go to Seattle P-Patch Garden.

New York City: The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation has a section on community gardening assistance or check out the Gardener’s Resource Center at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Denver, Colorado: For advice, information and even free seeds and plants go to Denver Urban Gardens http://www.dug.org/about_dug.asp

Berkley, California: For an example of a successful youth community garden program see The Edible School Yard

Arlington, Virginia: For information on starting a garden in residential blocks go to Community Green.

Click here a list of books on Community Gardening

1 Gather like-minded people and organize into a group. When the plot is located and you are ready to begin, apportion and delegate tasks. For tips on organizing a garden community, writing a compact for the group, formulating rules, allocating plots and so on, download the “Community Garden Start-Up Guide” from the University of California, Davis, website, which features advice and tips on creating flexible contracts. Go to Growfriend for more advice on starting up.

2 Locate suitable land with access to water and electricity. You’ll need fencing to keep out four-legged marauders. Vacant lots, schoolyards, retirement homes and churchyards are potential sites. Get permission from property owners.

3 Plan and design your garden carefully. It should have full sun for a minimum of six to eight hours a day. Consider how much land will be needed to give each family ample space for its own plot. Go to the American Community Garden Association to learn more. When laying out plots be sure to leave enough space for paths for walking and trundling wheelbarrows or carts. Remember: many gardens can be grown in less than six months; typically a garden calendar runs from May, after last frost when soil has dried out from spring rains, through October, or first killing frost. Click here to find out your climate by state.

4 Explain clearly to your group that it takes hard work to grow plants successfully and make sure everyone commits to sharing the labor. Inventory the skills of members and ask neighborhood gardeners to share their experience. For good basic information on plants, see websites of groups like the National Gardening Association.

5 Decide whether your garden will be organic, natural or “anything goes.” Incorporate into your contract the rules governing the type of garden you have chosen. If you have an on-site compost pile, plan to educate gardeners about the differences between carbon- and nitrogen-based compost, and also about what does not go into the compost. For one of the best discussions on the role of bacteria-enriched compost, see Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate by Wendy Johnson.

6 Barter where you can to cut expenses. If you need a toolshed built, for example, trade produce for carpentry skills. Scour yard sales for cheap implements. If you have to raise money for fencing, building materials or other items, create a fundraising appeal tailored to the community. Check out websites like Craigslist for garden supplies and tools.

7 Assemble tools and supplies: hoses, couplings, sprinklers, watering devices, wheelbarrows. New soil is less expensive if purchased by the truckload. Decide which tools and supplies are for communal use.

8 Write down your garden’s goals and record the progress in a garden journal. Set up a website. Tweet and blog your successes! Spread the word to local media outlets. Ask farmers at your local farmers’ market for expert advice on problems you’re having with your crop. Chances are pretty good that your problem is not unique and that you will find a solution. Click here if you live in an urban area.

9 Share your produce with neighbors who don’t have the time or the means to grow a garden. Encourage them to join you next season. According to AmpleHarvest, more than 36 million Americans (12 percent of the population) are hungry and rely on food pantries to help sustain their families. For rules on donating grown or gleaned foods, go the the USDA website.

10 Get to work! Even if next spring is the soonest you can begin, now is the time to plan. In some cases, grants are available for getting a garden started or for taking gardens to another level. Go to Kids Gardening to apply for funds for 2010.

CONCEIVED by WALTER MOSLEY with research by Rae Gomes

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090921/ten_things

Refuse…Resist

{ September 6, 2009 @ 1:16 pm } · { News }
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*In a Sepultura mood today…*

Chaos a.d.
Tanks on the streets
Confronting police
Bleeding the plebs
Raging crowd
Burning cars
Bloodshed starts
Wholl be alive? !

Chaos a.d.
Army in siege
Total alarm
Im sick of this
Inside the state
War is created
No mans land
Whats this shit? !

Refuse/resist
Refuse

Chaos a.d.
Disorder unleashed
Starting to burn
Starting to lynch
Silence means death
Stand on your feet
Inner fear
Your worst enemy

Refuse/resist
Refuse/resist

Rense is down…

{ September 5, 2009 @ 1:37 pm } · { News }
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Rense has been down for at least an hour, have not been able to access it. Hope everything is okay.

Hate speech law unconstitutional: rights tribunal

{ September 2, 2009 @ 3:06 pm } · { News }
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The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that Section 13, Canada’s much maligned human rights hate speech law, is an unconstitutional violation of the Charter right to free expression because of its penalty provisions.

The decision released this morning by Tribunal chair Athanasios Hadjis appears to strip the Canadian Human Rights Commission of its controversial legal mandate to pursue hate on the Internet, which it has strenuously defended against complaints of censorship.

It also marks the first major failure of Section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, an anti-hate law that was conceived in the 1960s to target racist telephone hotlines, then expanded in 2001 to the include the entire Internet, and for the last decade used almost exclusively by one complainant, activist Ottawa lawyer Richard Warman.

Today’s shocking decision is a victory over Mr. Warman by Marc Lemire, webmaster of freedomsite.org and a prominent figure in the Canadian far right, who was supported in his constitutional challenge of Section 13 by the legal team defended Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel.

Mr. Warman alleged that postings on Mr. Lemire’s website, written by others, contravened Section 13 in that they were “likely to expose” identifiable groups to “hatred or contempt.”

Mr. Lemire responded by challenging the law itself, which was last upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in a 1990 split decision, before the Internet age.

That decision, about neo-Nazi John Ross Taylor, upheld the law as a justifiable limit on free expression largely because of its supposedly remedial, non-punitive purpose. But Mr. Hadjis found that that, today, the pursuit of Section 13(1) cases “can no longer be considered exclusively remedial, preventative and conciliatory in nature.” Rather, the law “has become more penal in nature.”

He cited Mr. Warman’s request for a $7500 penalty against Mr. Lemire. Mr. Warman has won over a dozen other Section 13(1) cases, many leading to similar fines as well as legal restrictions on Internet activity.

This criticism about a penal law masquerading as a remedial one echoes that of Richard Moon, a law professor hired by the CHRC last year to provide an expert analysis of their online hate speech mandate. In essence, his advice was that it could not be done fairly, and so should not be done at all.

Mr. Hadjis’ decision to reject the law as unconstitutional, in light of its penalty provisions, leaves a central area Canada’s human rights in limbo, and kicks a political hot potato over to the government and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which can appeal the ruling to Federal Court.

Mr. Warman’s case was supported by the CHRC, and various advocacy groups joined the case as intervenors in support of Section 13.

Mr. Hadjis rejected Mr. Warman’s complaints in all but one instance, an article called AIDS Secrets. He found that this posting contravened Section 13(1). But he also found the law itself — with its threat of penalties such as an order to cease the discrimatory messages, or pay fines up to $10,000 — violates Mr. Lemire’s Charter right to freedom of expression, and therefore refused to make any order against him.

“Since a formal declaration of invalidity [of Section 13(1)] is not a remedy available to the Tribunal, I will simply refuse to apply these provisions for the purposes of the complaint against Mr. Lemire and I will not issue any remedial order against him,” Mr. Hadjis wrote.

http://www.nationalpost.com/story-printer.html?id=1954734

US Hummers Enter Pakistan, Undercover American Soldiers Swarm Islamabad

{ September 1, 2009 @ 12:18 pm } · { News }
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Undercover armed Americans are swarming the Pakistani capital in the latest sign that the elected government has allowed Washington to dispatch what is believed to be a large number of American special operations agents and contractual security guards, including the infamous Blackwater private militia.

This comes at a time when whistleblowers within the government and the military are reporting the arrival of a large number of US Marines in Pakistan. Some reports put the figure at 1,000 US soldiers, much of whom are thought to be arriving as part of the massive expansion of the US Embassy and four consulates across the country. While the US embassy continues to deny this, new buildings are under construction to house security teams. The expanded US embassy is supposed to become the largest US embassy in the world.

Above is an exclusive picture taken by a source at the entrance of Port Qasim near Karachi, showing US Hummers being transported out of the facility. According to the source, the shipment was not destined for Afghanistan. The picture was taken on Aug. 19, 2009 and being released here for the first time.

The latest evidence of the growing American military presence in the Pakistani capital is the arrest of four Americans carrying automatic weapons in a part of the Pakistani capital that foreigners seldom visit.

The four were arrested in Sector G-9 of Islamabad in the evening of Saturday, Aug. 29.

A police picket stopped two cars carrying the four Americans who refused to explain why they were carrying sophisticated automatic weapons in the capital city. Diplomats are not supposed to carry weapons because their security is the responsibility of the host government, and security guards are not supposed to be carrying weapons outside the embassy except during official assignments. The four were taken to a police station for interrogation but were released when two retired Pakistani army officers showed up and threatened police officers of dire consequences.

The police established that the four Americans carried diplomatic status and were part of the US embassy staff.

When I called today US embassy spokesperson Richard Snelsire about the incident, he refused to comment and referred me to the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Pakistani police.

“Do US diplomats normally carry weapons?” I asked.

Mr. Snelsire’s reply was, “Only if they are permitted” to do so by the Pakistani government. But he avoided commenting on the incident or explaining whether the four were diplomats.

The spokesman’s reaction confirms suspicions that private US security guards are active in Pakistan. For obvious reasons these guards do not come under the cover of US Department of State employees in Pakistan. This could be one reason why US embassy spokesperson declined comment on the story since the presence and the activities of the four armed men might be beyond the purview of the US embassy in Islamabad.

There is strong evidence that the private US mercenary army, Blackwater, has also established office in the Pakistani capital. Authorities have received several complaints of ill mannered military-type westerners misbehaving or recklessly driving by.

The Pakistani capital was the scene of at least two incidents recently where armed American diplomats verbally and physically assaulted Pakistani police officers. In one case, newspapers called for expelling an armed US diplomat who cursed and swore at the host country. The Pakistani government, which is known to be pro-American, refused to take action.

The Americans appear to have recruited a large number of retired Pakistani army officers, in addition to quietly hiring Pakistani civil servants without making any of this public. A famous government university professor in Islamabad who is active in US media campaigns against Pakistan’s nuclear program has also been hired as a consultant. Government employees cannot offer their services to foreign governments but this is happening now under an increasingly weak Pakistani state and government.

Who Is Inviting US Military To Pakistan

There are indications that the PPP government and some other politicians, like Nawaz Sharif, are encouraging the Americans to get involved in domestic issues especially as a hedge against a powerful Pakistani military. Politicians are aware they have led the country to a national failure on all fronts since the general elections in February 2008. The public mood is gradually turning against them. This has stoked the rumor mill about disgruntlement within the Pakistani military regarding the failures of the politicians.

Washington is spending nearly one billion dollars to expand its Islamabad embassy. On completion, the US embassy in Islamabad will become the largest in the world. Interestingly, both the government, led by President Zardari, and the opposition, led by Nawaz Sharif, refuse to question why Washington has been granted exceptional concessions to construct an imperial-size embassy and how at least 18 acres of the most expensive real state in the capital has been handed over to the Americans for this purpose at throwaway prices.

http://uruknet.com/?p=m57513&hd=&size=1&l=e

Des soldats infectés par une bactérie en quarantaine à Québec

{ August 20, 2009 @ 8:50 pm } · { French, News }
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Trois soldats canadiens de retour de Kandahar en Afghanistan sont présentement en quarantaine à l’Hôpital Enfant-Jésus de Québec après que l’on eut découvert qu’ils étaient infectés par une «superbactérie» résistante aux antibiotiques.

Deux autres patients de l’hôpital, qui ne sont pas des militaires mais qui sont entrés en contact avec les soldats infectés, ont également été isolés de peur qu’ils aient contracté la bactérie nommée «Acinetobacter baumanii».

La bactérie nosocomiale, que l’on retrouve généralement dans la terre et l’eau, s’attaque aux systèmes immunitaires affaiblis, particulièrement ceux d’individus qui se remettent de blessures.

Elle peut également occasionner des maladies comme la pneumonie, la méningite ainsi que des infections sanguines ou urinaires. Elle peut également infecter les plaies. Certaines personnes transportent même la bactérie sur leur peau sans éprouver de symptômes.

L’Agence de la santé publique du Canada avait mis en garde, il y a deux ans, les hôpitaux canadiens contre les risques de la propagation de la bactérie à la suite du retour d’Afghanistan de soldats blessés. Ces derniers risquaient, selon l’agence, d’en être malades ou encore de transporter la bactérie dans leur système.

Selon un rapport datant de 2007 publié dans un publication canadienne portant sur le soin des plaies, l’incidence de la souche a augmenté dans les hôpitaux militaires américains, où les soldats sont de retour d’Irak, du Kuwait et d’Afghanistan. L’on estime que le même phénomène pourrait se produire au Canada.

Le ministère de la Défense affirme qu’il travaille en collaboration avec les hôpitaux civils qui accueillent des membres des Forces canadiennes pour minimiser les risques de contamination.

Selon la porte-parole du ministère, Lisa Fiander, les soldats blessés qui quittent l’Afghanistan sont testés deux fois afin de savoir s’ils sont infectés; une fois sur place et une deuxième fois dans un hôpital allemand, où ils transitent. Mme Fiander affirme que la bactérie pose problème parce qu’elle a tendance à résister aux antibiotiques mais elle assure qu’elle peut tout de même être combattue avec succès.

Une porte-parole de l’Hôpital Enfant-Jésus, Geneviève Dupuis, a affirmé que l’hôpital avait soigné, depuis 2007, entre 15 et 20 soldats transportant la bactérie.

Elle affirme également que l’hôpital a pris des mesures pour l’isoler et pour s’assurer que d’autres patients ne l’ont pas contractée.

Selon elle, les patients, les visiteurs et les employés ne devraient pas s’inquiéter.

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/quebec-canada/national/200908/20/01-894423-des-soldats-infectes-par-une-bacterie-en-quarantaine-a-quebec.php

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