Thursday May 15, 2008
Meningitis: defeated at last?
Jeremy Laurance
independent
Parents live in fear of this infection. It targets the young and strikes with horrificspeed. One in 10 dies, and many others suffer permanent disabilities. But yesterday scientists revealed a startling breakthrough
The annual scourge of deaths and severe illness caused by meningitis could be consigned to the history books after scientists announced startling results from trials of a potential vaccine.
In the most significant advance in a decade, researchers say they have obtained powerful immune responses in 150 British infants on whom the vaccine was tested, suggesting it would be protective against the group B type of the disease.
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Saturday May 10, 2008
Filipino whose wife died after blunder by NHS to be deported
Jeremy Laurance
Independent
A man whose wife died as a result of an NHS blunder has lost his right to remain in Britain, in what a coroner described yesterday as an "extraordinary" decision.
Arnel Cabrera, 39, came to Britain from the Philippines in 2003 to join his wife, Mayra, a theatre nurse, who worked at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon.
But a year later, Mrs Cabrera died at the same hospital after she was given an epidural during the birth of the couple's child which was mistakenly injected into her arm. The baby survived.
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Thursday May 01, 2008
They don't just shop local in Totnes - they have their very own currency
Rob Sharp
Independent
If you were to nip down to Devon's Totnes market on a Saturday looking to buy some spelt flour pancakes, crêpes or falafels, then you might just encounter Lou Brown, who is a remarkably fine cook. But she has another, non-culinary distinction. Unlike most businesses in the country, Brown does not deal in currency with a picture of the Queen's head on it. No, instead, her change features an image much closer to home. The town where she lives.
Brown, along with thousands of her fellow residents in this colourful south-west retreat, uses Totnes pounds: notes printed and traded locally (and decorated with a sepia depiction of the town's main thoroughfare).
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Wednesday April 30, 2008
Robert Steele CIA: High-Ranking Official Slams the Drug War
Robert Steele
Youtube
"This is a very serious movie and I volunteered to appear in it." - Robert Steele
An excerpt from "Robert Steele CIA," part of over 3 hours of bonus features on the "American Drug War" DVD. - AmericanDrugWar
Robert Steele is also an author and one of Amazon.com's top-50 reviewers. Check out his review of "American Drug War: The Last White Hope": www.AmericanDrugWar
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 07:20 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Global press freedom declines in 2007: study
AFP
Global press freedom declined in 2007 for the sixth year running, with worrisome restrictions imposed in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, the rights group Freedom House has stated in a report.
The Washington-based organization expressed concern about violence against journalists in a number of countries, including Russia, Mexico and the Philippines on Tuesday.
Iraq and Somalia remained the most dangerous countries for reporters, the annual survey said.
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The Iraq War Morphs Into the Iran War
Paul Craig Roberts
Counterpunch
It is 1939 all over again. The world waits helplessly for the next act of naked aggression by rogue states. Only this time the rogue states are not the Third Reich and Fascist Italy. They are the United States and Israel.
The targeted victims are not Poland and France, but Iran, Syria, the remains of the Palestinian West Bank and southern Lebanon.
The American mass media is overjoyed. War coverage attracts viewers and sells advertising.
The neoconservatives are ecstatic. Hegemony uber alles is back on track.
The US Air Force can’t wait “to show what it can do.”
Defense contractors see no end of the profits.
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Best-selling Sanatogen vitamin pills are dyed with harmful additives
Martin Hickman
Independent
Britain's best-selling vitamin pill is dyed with artificial colours which can cause rashes and hyperactive behaviour in children.
Two colours – sunset yellow and quinoline yellow – criticised in an official study which led to their censure by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) last week – are found in Sanatogen Gold, the country's leading multivitamin brand.
Sanatogen's Kids A To Z Strawberry Flavour vitamins have another suspect additive: the red colouring Ponceau 4R.
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The power struggle
Cahal Milmo
Independent
Oil companies rake in profits of £7.2bn as fuel prices soar
The price of power and who foots the bill for Britain's rocketing energy costs took centre stage yesterday as the oil giants Shell and BP unveiled huge combined profits of £7.2bn, made in just three months, and consumers were hit with a new round of steep rises in prices from gas and electricity to air travel.
Npower, Britain's fourth largest domestic power supplier, signalled the start of what experts said will be another round of price increases in gas and electricity after it abolished its cheapest online dual fuel tariff and raised charges for new internet customers by up to 20 per cent.
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Saturday April 26, 2008
Mugabe's Party Loses in Recount
Reuters
President Robert Mugabe's party has failed to secure control of Zimbabwe's parliament in a partial recount of the March 29 election, results showed on Saturday, handing the ruling party its first defeat in 28 years.
Results of a parallel presidential poll have not been released and Mugabe has been preparing for a run-off against Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Tsvangirai says he won outright and his party has rejected both the recount and any run-off.
For the first time since Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980, the MDC wrested a parliamentary majority from Mugabe's ZANU-PF in the election, triggering a recount of 23 out of 210 constituencies.
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Were Mesopotamians the first brand addicts?
Jeff Hecht
New Scientist
Product branding first emerged in ancient Mesopotamia, the birthplace of cities and writing. So claims David Wengrow, an archaeologist at University College London, who says that bottle stops stamped with symbols some 5000 years ago are evidence of the first branded goods.
Around 8000 years ago, village-dwelling Mesopotamians began making personalised stone seals, which they pressed into the caps and stoppers used to seal food and drink.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 05:26 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry