Jul 02 2007

Kazakh HIV Case Completed

Category: In The Media,KazakhstanChrisM @ 12:06 am

More positive news to follow, but this recently caught my eye over at the BBC web site.

21 people from Shymkent, involved in the medical profession, have been found guilty of producing an HIV outbreak. This incident has so far been known to take the lives of 10 children, with another 110 infected. The case was that these workers, through negligence, fraud and bad medical practice, needlessly engineered situations where patients received un-necessary treatments. As blood was used in transfusions that had not been properly screened, infected samples were used, and so patients were put in extremely high risks. Just as often, medical apparatus was not properly cleaned between procedures, so infections from previous blood supplies were carried over to the next batch.
Some have commented that is not very surprising that the ex-head of the regional health department and her deputies only received suspended sentences.

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Jun 21 2007

Monstrous Mob Mentality

Category: In The Media,PersonalChrisM @ 10:22 pm

A group of Texans have beaten a man to death after he accidentally hit a child, at low speed, in a car park.
Around 20 people are believed to have taken the law into their own hands when a girl was hit (but not seriously injured), and the passenger got out to check if she was ok.
The incident occurred near the Juneteenth festival, which is held to mark the freeing of American slaves.
Check the BBC Article for more info.

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Jun 20 2007

Gas Pipe Disruption – Though Not Where You Think

Category: In The Media,PersonalChrisM @ 9:03 pm

Police take action over attempts to disrupt the construction of a gas pipeline.
Just another day in Iraq? Not a very surprising head line to read perhaps?
Well, this is not regarding terrorists/freedom fighters in Iraq. No, this concerns my home countries – England and Wales!

Around 30 people have been protesting about the construction of a pipeline between Pembrokeshire and Gloucestershire (the county Cheltenham is in, where we lived prior to Astana), and the A40 (that eventually leads onto London) has been closed around Brecon, as the authorities attempt to evict the protesters.

Grab more info at the BBC article on their web site.

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Jun 15 2007

Back to Swansea Again

Category: In The Media,PersonalChrisM @ 3:53 am

Came across this article on the BBC website.

A girl in Swansea who suffered appalling burns has received a novel treatment to try and help her recover.
They basically inserted a medical balloon under her healthy skin, and inflated it to create excess scalp, and an area for hair to grow. (Her skin never fully recovered from the burns, and in some places she was bald.) The idea is that once complete, they can deflate the balloon, and farm the skin and hair to use on her affected areas.
Pretty damn impressive!

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Jun 08 2007

Teacher May NOT Be Going To Jail

Category: In The Media,PersonalChrisM @ 3:24 am

Following on from the previous article, I thought I’d post this link to a BBC report on an American teacher who has now got a new trial underway.
The original charge? That she gave cause to a room full of school children to see pornographic images on a computer!
So where is the link between that and the Spy Sweeper product I mentioned earlier? It now looks like the PC in question may have been infected with ad ware, which coudl mean that the no criminal act was carried out – just the normal levels of ignorance so often found with PC users. If the PC had been protected, it is quite likely that the pop up adverts would never have been produced, a class full of children wouldn’t have been asking their parents difficult questions (but Mum, why did she have that banana there?), the PC would have been working more quickly on the internet, and most importantly, the teacher herself wouldn’t now be facing the possibility of 40 years in prison!

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Jun 02 2007

WiFi Killed My Hamster…

Category: Aware Or Conspiracy Nut...,In The Media,Personal,WiFiChrisM @ 10:56 am

The Guardian blog has an entry regarding the ongoing saga of the BBC Panorama’s report on the dangers of WiFi radio signals, especially in children, whose brains are still developing. They centred their investigations on schools, where WiFi is becoming more popular, bypassing the need to retro-fit CAT5/6 cables everywhere.
Anyway the businessman/scientist who was used as Panorama’s expert has rebutted claims by some that his methods were profit-based, and not fair comparisons with mobile phone masts for example. It was good to see the comments on this blog entry being well thought out responses.

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Jun 01 2007

Alan Johnston Video Released

Category: PersonalChrisM @ 2:48 pm

Just watching BBC World, and a video of the kidnapped journalist, Alan Johnston, has been released to the media.
He stated that he had been well fed, and not physically mis-treated.
He spoke of the actions of UK & USA government around the world, and how they were causing suffering.
There was indication where or, just as importantly, when the video was made.
The video was followed by a statement from his alleged kidnappers, detailing their demands. I’m not sure if they treated the audio track, used a woman or just had a high pitched person read their statement, but it sounded quite odd.

Whatever your view on America and Britain’s role in Afghanistan, Iraq & the backing of the Israeli state, Alan himself was never afraid to report the truth, and point out the injustices in the occupied Palestinian lands.

The mere fact that proof of his survival of the kidnapping itself is a good sign, but with no sign of when it was made, it is difficult to get your hopes up too high, just yet.

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May 29 2007

BBC Reports On Kazakhstan

Category: Aware Or Conspiracy Nut...,In The Media,KazakhstanChrisM @ 2:20 am

A couple of friends in Britain sent me links to some interesting articles on the recent events in Kazakhstan, from the BBC. They are quite similar, and the articles are listed in date order, the earliest first. One friend commented that the 2nd last paragraph in the 3rd article was very interesting indeed.

1st (oldest article)
2nd
3rd (newest article)

Please do not comment on these articles at this blog, as media laws in this country can be difficult to interpret, and I do not wish to fall foul of the fine upstanding legal system that is strongly in place here.

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May 27 2007

Who Are You And What Are You Doing?

Category: Aware Or Conspiracy Nut...,In The Media,PersonalChrisM @ 9:09 am

The BBC has reported that the UK government is looking at introducing new stop and quiz powers for the police. Although not as controversial as the stop and search issue, the idea that a innocent citizen can be stopped, asked for proof of identification, and exactly what they are doing does not fill me with joy.
True, these powers are being considered as an attempt to assist the ‘war on terror’, the very use of the phrase itself does not lend much credibility to the scheme, at least to some people. I still have some small sliver of hope left that the compulsory ID card scheme will be dropped – anyone who has seriously nefarious plans is not going to find difficulty in forging cards, no matter what the (government paid) experts declare…

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May 23 2007

Summary of the Goings On In Kazakhstan

Category: In The Media,KazakhstanChrisM @ 3:24 am

Last week, a batch of amendments were announced, and if you are at all interested at how the situation in this country will be changing, I’d recommend reading some of the posts over at KZBlog (see the links page for the, well, err… link 🙂 )
If you’d like to read a summary of the changes, rather than a little more details, this particular post is most relevant – New Amendments Clarified in English.
The BBC also published an article on it here, cheers to ChrisD for sending me the link.
Next time one of you feels like moaning about the political system back home in America or the UK, have a quick gander over the ‘improvements’ on the table for RK…

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