Mexico City Introduces Women-Only Buses to Deter Groping
January 26, 2008
Groping and verbal harassment is an exasperating reality for women using public transportation in this sprawling capital, where 22 million passengers cram onto subways and buses each day. Some men treat women so badly that the subway system has long had ladies-only cars during rush hour, with police segregating the sexes on the platforms.
But that hasn’t helped women forced to rely on packed buses, by far the city’s most-used form of public transportation — until this week.
Acting on complaints from women’s groups, the city rolled out “ladies only” buses, complete with pink signs in the windshields to wave off the men.
As word spreads about the buses, the women seem delighted, while some men forced to wait a few minutes longer have shown their anger. Still others have stumbled on board despite the signs, much to their embarrassment.
On Thursday, passengers on one of the female-only buses spent most of their trip down the capital’s tree-lined Reforma Avenue chatting or putting on makeup, instead of fighting off unwanted male attention.
When a man mistakenly climbed aboard, the women immediately began teasing him and shouting that he should read the “ladies only” sign.
“He’s a gentleman! He should get off,” shouted Yolanda Altamirano, a 64-year-old office janitor.
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India Risks Bird Flu Disaster - Human Cases Feared
January 24, 2008
India’s worst ever outbreak of bird flu could turn into a disaster, an official warned Tuesday, as five people were reportedly quarantined with symptoms of the virus.
2000 have complained of fever.
Eight districts in the eastern state of West Bengal have been hit by the virus, and dead birds are being sold and locals said to be “feasting” on cheap chicken.
The state’s animal resources minister, Anisur Rahaman, said authorities were “determined to cull all poultry in the districts in three or four days, otherwise the state will face a disaster.”
More than 100,000 bird deaths have been reported, and teams are racing to cull two million chickens and ducks.
The Times of India reported five people in West Bengal have been quarantined with “clinical symptoms” of avian flu including fever, coughing, sore throat and muscle ache after handling affected poultry.
If the tests are positive, this will be the first case of human infection in India, home to 1.1 billion people and hit by bird flu among poultry three times since 2006.
Health officials in New Delhi said they were currently analysing blood samples from close to 150 people who have complained of fever.
On the ground, culling teams have been facing an uphill battle with villagers smuggling birds out of flu affected areas and selling them in open markets.
Thirty-year-old Sheikh Ali, a vendor in Birbhum’s Gharisa market, 340 kilometres (192 miles) from the state capital Kolkata, said the sale of poultry had doubled in the past week.
“The prices of chicken have come down from 60 rupees to 20 rupees (1.5 dollars to 50 cents) per kilogramme (2.2 pounds).
“Poor villagers are feasting on chicken. At normal times, they cannot afford to buy as prices are so high. Now they are enjoying the meat,” Ali said.
People typically catch the disease by coming into direct contact with infected poultry, but experts fear a flu pandemic if the H5N1 mutates into a form easily transmissible between humans.
Migratory birds have been largely blamed for the global spread of the disease, which has killed more than 200 people worldwide since 2003.
In Birbhum, police seized two trucks of smuggled poultry early Tuesday but culling teams were yet to arrive at the spot, an AFP correspondent said.
“Poultry owners are smuggling their birds out at night and transporting it to different places for fear of culling,” said Shubhendu Mahato, a security guard at Arambagh Hatchery, one of the biggest in West Bengal.
Chicken shops had also sprung up along the main highways overnight with people crowding them, the AFP correspondent said.
Parent Angry Over Movies Allegedly Shown At High School
January 24, 2008
Justin’s son told him he had watched about 46 hours of movies in various classes since October. Several of the movies were rated R, he said.
Movies that students at Luther allegedly watched included “Saving Private Ryan,” “Dodgeball,” “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Spider Man 3.”"We went probably a month and never saw one stick of homework,” the Luther student said.When a homework checklist the Luther father sends to school with his son came back with a peculiar comment from a teacher, Justin decided to take action.
The teacher’s comment on the homework checklist reads: “Seriously! Are we going to continue doing this the rest of the year?”"I want my son to be able to do algebra. I want him to know about Oklahoma history. I want him to know about literature. These are things that he needs to be prepared for, for life,” Justin said.
He added that he has talked with Luther High School Principal Jan Scheffler, who did not have time to talk with Eyewitness News 5 on Tuesday. She said standard policy is for all movies to be approved by school authorities before being shown to students.
When asked whether she approved of movies like “Saving Private Ryan,” “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Spider Man 3,” Scheffler said she is looking into it.Officials with the Oklahoma Department of Education are also investigating the allegations, noting that by law, students should receive at least six hours of instruction per day.Any movies watched should be relevant to the course, education officials said.
Fast Moving Blood Infection Kills Student
January 24, 2008
A 22-year-old Dillard University student has died of a rare infection of the bloodstream that can spread bacteria throughout the body, New Orleans Health Department Director Kevin Stephens said Tuesday.
Citing a request for privacy from the mans family, Dillard spokeswoman Karen Celestan said she could not release the name of the student, who died Friday.
However, the state Office of Public Health is offering preventive care to the students close contacts and offering information about the illness, said Dr. Takeisha Davis, the departments regional medical director.
Although the infection is difficult to treat because it moves quickly, Stephens said vaccines are effective. The body needs about two weeks after the shot to build up enough antibodies to ward off the infection, Davis said.
Dillard will be offering free immunizations to faculty, staff and students today from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Lawless Memorial Chapel, Celestan said.
This infection, which can cause death within two days, is rare, striking one person in 500,000, Stephens said. Early warning signs are rash, fever and flu like symptoms.
At this point, “theres no need to call out the troops,” Stephens said, because this case appears to be an isolated one.
People can ward off the infection with basic hygienic practices such as frequent hand-washing and covering the mouth when coughing and sneezing, and not sharing personal items such as razors, he said.
The vaccine to be administered today is used to combat meningitis, which, Stephens said, is related to this ailment. Such infections can be common among first- and second-year college students because they are more likely to live close together in dormitories. State law requires the vaccine for incoming college students, Stephens said.
Older people are also vulnerable, he said.
Goodbye Marriage Hello Alternative Family Arrangements
January 23, 2008
Britain has become a significantly more tolerant nation over the last 20 years, with increasingly liberal views on marriage, relationships and same-sex partnerships, according to research showing that the heterosexual married couple is no longer at the centre of UK life.
The British Social Attitudes report, conducted annually since 1983, reveals both dramatic social change around family life and a widespread acceptance that traditional structures and life patterns are being eroded.
However, it also shows that some traditional norms endure: adulterous sex is still as strongly condemned as it was two decades ago - 85% say it is always or mostly wrong - and people are more wary of alternative family arrangements where children are involved.
The latest report, based on more than 3,000 interviews with a random, representative sample of people in 2006, offers a picture of a fast-changing landscape of relationships and living arrangements, including partners who do not live together, unmarried, long-term cohabitees, “reconstituted families” made up of previously divorced parents and their stepchildren, and a rise in solo living.
The Victorian notion of marriage as the “socially accepted and religiously sanctified means of having sex” has vanished, says the study: 70% of people think there is nothing wrong with sex before marriage, compared with fewer than half (48%) in 1984. Cohabitation and marriage have become effective equivalents in the minds of most: two-thirds of people believe there is little difference between being married and living together, and only just over one in four (28%) think married couples make better parents than unmarried ones.
Malaysia Seizes Christian Books
January 23, 2008
Malaysian authorities confiscated Christian children’s books, claiming the illustrations of prophets such as Moses and Abraham violate Islamic Shariah law.
The independent news agency Malaysakini reported the Internal Security Ministry confiscated the literature from bookstores in two cities and one small town in mid-December.
The Malaysian Embassy declined to comment on the news service’s Jan. 11 report.
The Rev. Hermen Shastri, general secretary of the Malaysian Council of Churches, confirmed the report and accused the government of persecuting Christians.
“The officials have offended the sensitivities of Christians because their publications and depictions of their Biblical personalities have now become targets of unscrupulous Muslim officials bent on curtailing religious freedom in the country,” Mr. Shastri said.
Russia Bombers To Test Fire Missiles In Atlantic
January 23, 2008
Russia on Tuesday sent two long-range bombers to the Bay of Biscay, off the French and Spanish Atlantic coasts, to test-fire missiles in what it billed as its biggest navy exercise in the area since Soviet times.
British and Norwegian Tornado and F-16 jets were escorting the Russian ‘Blackjack’ bombers, Interfax reported, quoting the Russian Air Force.
However, the French Defence Ministry spokesman said his country had been informed about the Russian exercises.
Firing missiles off the coastline of two members of the NATO military alliance is the latest in a series of Kremlin moves flexing Moscow’s military muscle on the world stage.
The Russian bombers joined aircraft carriers, battleships and submarine hunters from the Northern and Black Sea fleets for the Atlantic exercises, which come as the country enters an election campaign to choose a successor to President Vladimir Putin.
“The air force is taking a very active part in the exercises of the navy’s strike force in the Atlantic,” Russia’s air force said in a statement.
“Today, two strategic Tu-160 bombers departed for exercises in the Bay of Biscay, which … will carry out a number of missions and will conduct tactical missile launches,” it said.
Putin, widely popular as his second four-year term draws to a close, has sought to use such moves to revive domestic and international respect for Russia’s armed forces which were shattered by the chaos of the 1990s.
Epidemic Superbug Strains Evolved From Single Bacterium - USA300
January 22, 2008
The drug-resistant “superbugs” that have cut a swathe through day care centers, schools, locker rooms and prisons across the United States in the last five years stem from one rapidly evolving bacterium, US scientists said Monday.
Scientists studying the genetic make-up of these bugs, which are resistant to almost all antibiotics, say they are nearly identical clones that have emerged from a single bacterial strain, which they have dubbed USA300.
“The USA300 group of strains appears to have extraordinary transmissibility and fitness,” said Frank DeLeo, a researcher with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Hamilton, Montana.
“We anticipate that new USA300 derivatives will emerge within the next several years and that these strains will have a wide range of disease-causing potential.”
Most drug-resistant staph infections cause soft-tissue infections such as boils that are readily treatable, but a skin infection can become a deadly pneumonia or blood or bone infection in a matter of days if the patient doesn’t get the right drugs.
What’s particularly worrying to health authorities is that the MRSA infections, (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) have spread beyond their traditional hospital setting, seeding an epidemic in the wider community.
The NIAID scientists studied the DNA of 10 patient samples of the USA300 bacterium taken from individuals treated at different US locations between 2002 and 2005. They compared the genetic sequences of the bugs to each other and to USA300 strains used in earlier studies.
The genomes of eight of the 10 patient samples were virtually identical, indicating they came from a common strain. The remaining two bacteria were related to the other eight, but more distantly.
The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Global Markets Continue To Plunge
January 22, 2008
Global stock markets extended their shakeout into a second day Tuesday, plunging amid worries that a possible U.S. recession will cause a worldwide economic slowdown. The dramatic declines were expected to spread to Wall Street, where stock index futures were already down sharply hours before the trading day began.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index, the benchmark for Asia’s biggest bourse, skidded 4.4 percent in morning trading to 12,738.31 points, after dropping 3.9 percent Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 5.2 percent after plunging 5.5 percent the day before.
“Unless we get some positive ’shock effects,’ such as drastic measures from the U.S. government, there is almost no hope for a recovery in stocks,” said Koji Takeuchi, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute in Tokyo.
U.S. markets were closed Monday for a holiday commemorating civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. But Wall Street future prices were down sharply, portending a plunge when trading begins at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time.
Dow Jones industrial average futures were down 436 points, or 3.6 percent, at 11,670, while Standard & Poor’s 500 futures were down 57.1 points, or 4.3 percent, at 1,268.
Markets have been plunging amid pessimism about the ability of the U.S. government to prevent a recession. The Federal Reserve has indicated it will lower interest rates further, and President Bush has proposed an economic stimulus package that includes $145 billion in tax cuts, but investors around the world are doubtful that the measures will lift the economy quickly.
Bolton - Israel May Have To Take Military Action Against Iran
January 22, 2008
Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said on Monday that Israel may have to take military action to prevent its archfoe Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb.
Bolton also said that further UN sanctions against the Islamic republic will be ineffective in stopping Iran’s controversial nuclear programme which Israel and the US believe is aimed at developing a bomb — a claim denied by Tehran.
“One can say with some assurance that in the next year the use of force by the United States is highly unlikely,” Bolton told AFP on the sidelines of the Herzliya conference on the balance of Israel’s national security.
“That increases the pressure on Israel in that period of time… if it feels Iran is on the verge of acquiring that capability, it brings the decision point home to use force,” he said.
The hawkish former diplomat said that after a US intelligence report published late last year that claimed Iran had suspended a nuclear weapons programme in 2003, the US was unlikely to take military action against it.
“The pressure is on Israel now after the National Intelligence Estimate because, I think, the likelihood of American use of force has been dramatically reduced,” he said.
Widely considered the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear power, Israel considers Iran its number one enemy following repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map.
Bolton said that military action against Iran should be taken before Tehran acquires a bomb.
“The calculus in the region changes dramatically once Iran has nuclear capability, meaning the preemptive use of force or the overthrow of the Iranian regime has to come before they get the weapon,” Bolton said.
“If you are worried about an Iran with nuclear weapons and an extreme theological regime in power, the time to take the plan of action is before Iran acquires the weapons.
“Once it acquires the weapons there is a risk of retaliation with nuclear capability and that’s why Israel is in danger — it is a very small country and two or three nuclear weapons (and) there is no more country. The pressure to act is intensive and the window of time available is narrow.”
Bolton also said that despite Iranian threats to hit hard if it is attacked, “their response will be a lot more measured than people think.”
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