Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Saturday, 25 October 2014

The European Union Times


Posted: 24 Oct 2014 03:59 PM PDT


Australian doctors have successfully transplanted hearts that have stopped beating, revolutionizing organ donation. The breakthrough is predicted to save the lives of 30 percent more heart transplant patients.
After two decades of research, a team of surgeons at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney has transplanted three still hearts into living patients. The first two patients are recovering well, with the third, who recently underwent the surgery, still in intensive care.
Michelle Gribilas, a 57-year-old Sydney woman, was the first to undergo the surgery two months ago. She had been suffering from congenital heart failure.
“I was very sick before I had it. Now I’m a different person altogether. I feel like I’m 40 years old. I’m very lucky,” she was quoted as saying in AFP.
In collaboration with researchers at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, the team at St. Vincent’s developed the technique which allows for the resuscitation and transplant of hearts that have stopped beating up to 20 minutes earlier. The procedure involves transferring the still heart from the recently-deceased donor into a ‘heart in a box’, a portable console in which the heart is preserved and resuscitated before being transplanted into the living patient.
“[W]e remove blood from the donor to prime the machine and then we take the heart out, connect it to the machine, warm it up and then it starts to beat,” Peter MacDonald, a medical director at St. Vincent’s, was quoted describing the technique in the Guardian.
The hearts were stored in the console for about four hours in order to make sure that they were functioning well.
“Based on the performance of the heart on the machine, we can then tell quite reliably whether this heart will work if we then go and transplant it,” said MacDonald.
Until now, surgeons relied exclusively on still-beating hearts from brain-dead donors. This meant that there was no way of knowing whether the heart would continue beating once transplanted into the recipient.
Doctors expect that the groundbreaking procedure will lead to a major increase in the number of hearts available for transplant.
“This breakthrough represents a major inroad to reducing the shortage of donor organs,” said MacDonald.
Source
        
Posted: 24 Oct 2014 03:52 PM PDT
New York City’s Bellevue Hospital Center, where the first person in the city to test positive for Ebola has been quarantined.
US health officials say they are tracing New York City’s first Ebola patient movements and seeking to ensure that they have found and isolated everyone who came into contact with him, as panic grips the country.
Dr. Craig Spencer reported symptoms for the deadly virus on Thursday morning, nearly a week after returning from Guinea where he worked at an Ebola treatment center. The 33-year-old became the fourth person diagnosed with the disease in the US and the first in its largest city.
According to health officials, initial reports were incorrect when they showed that the doctor had a 103-degree fever when he informed authorities about his ill health. He actually only had a 100.3 fever.
Officials said that Dr. Spencer, a physician for the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, was in stable condition on Friday, adding that 3 people who had close contact with the doctor were quarantined for observation.
The news of the city’s first Ebola case sent US equities markets lower on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. US stocks edged lower in early trade Friday.
About half an hour into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 16,668,56, down 9.34 points (0.06 percent).
The S&P 500 dipped 2.94 (0.15 percent) to 1,947.88, while the Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 3.16 (0.07 percent) to 4,449.63
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday urged residents not to panic by the first case of Ebola in their city.
“We want to state at the outset that New Yorkers have no reason to be alarmed,” de Blasio said. “New Yorkers who have not been exposed are not at all at risk.”
The mayor tried to reassure the public that “clear and strong” protocols were being followed to handle and treat the infected doctor.
The city’s health officials have been retracing Spencer’s steps to identify anyone who might be at risk.
So far, four people have been isolated because of potential exposure, three of whom are being quarantined.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also dispatched an Ebola response team to New York.
The latest epidemic has killed 4,877 people around the world, while more than 9,936 people have been infected, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.
Source
        
Posted: 24 Oct 2014 03:47 PM PDT
An undated photograph made available by the Rodong Sinmun newspaper of the North Korean ruling Workers’ Party on 22 October 2014 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspecting the newly completed Yonphung Scientists Rest Home, south of Pyongyang, North Korea.
Six of North Korea’s high ranking officials have ‘disappeared’ in the latest blood-thirsty purge of the regime, it has been reported.
The officials, including the commanding officer of North Korea’s air force, the minister of posts and telecommunications and a key official in the North’s sport programmes, have not been present at a series of important events in recent months.
An intelligence source told South Korea’s respected JoongAng Ilbo newspaper that ‘six minister-level officials were executed’.
If true, it would be the third major purge since the dictator Kim Jong-un assumed power in 2011.
The leader’s health and grip on the nation was recently questioned after he disappeared from local media reports for more than 40 days.
However, Kim has quelled the rumours of ill-health and unrest by being shown on state media visiting military facilities and construction sites.
Now speculation is growing he may have used the time to oversee another brutal purge of the regime.
The officials that have disappeared include General Ri Pyong-chol, who has not been seen in public since late August.
He was absent on October 19, when Kim provided ‘on-the-spot guidance’ to senior officials of the North Korean air force.
Another reported to be missing is Ma Won-chun, a prominent architect and construction official, who was not present when Kim toured construction projects in North Korea recently.
Ri Yong-gil, chief of the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army, was expected to be present at a ceremony to congratulate athletes who returned from this month’s Asian Games in South Korea, but did not attend.
Sim Chol-ho, the posts minster, was reportedly close to Kim Jong-il and failed to attend a meeting with representatives of the Egyptian company that provides North Korea’s mobile phone network.
Another official, Chang Ung, is understood to have had close ties with Mr Kim’s influential uncle Jang Song-thaek.
Mr Song-theaek was arrested in December 2013 and later executed for 24 abuses of power or contraventions of North Korean law, including ‘gnawing at the unity and cohesion of the party’ and ‘dreaming different dreams’.
Many of Jang’s closest allies were also purged at the time.
‘He was known as an associate of Jang Song-thaek and in investigation into him revealed that he had embezzled IOC funds and hidden the money in overseas accounts,’ a defector with knowledge of North Korea’s sporting circles told the JoongAng Ilbo.
Source
       
Posted: 24 Oct 2014 03:38 PM PDT
British Prime Minister David Cameron in a press conference in the EU headquarters in Brussels on October 24, 2014.
The British prime minister says his country will refuse to pay a £1.7-billion bill demanded as budget contribution by the European Union (EU), calling the Union’s behavior “appalling.”
“We are not suddenly going to take out our checkbook and write a check for two billion euros (USD 2.5 billion); it is not happening,” said David Cameron in a news conference on the sidelines of an EU summit over the member states’ climate change policies in Brussels on Friday.
“It is an unacceptable way for this organization to work, to suddenly present a bill like this for such a vast sum of money, with so little time to pay it, and it is an unacceptable way to treat one of the biggest contributors to the European Union,” the British premier added.
Cameron also warned that such “appalling” behavior would certainly affect Britain’s decision whether to remain in the European Union the premier added in a desperate attempt to copy Nigel Farage’s ideas and steal some UKIP votes.
On Thursday, the European Commission demanded a number of European countries including Britain, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands and Malta to provide the organization with extra money by December other than their annual contributions.
The organization said it made the decision after the recalculation of the member states’ national incomes since 1995, adding that Britain’s economy has enjoyed better-than-expected performance in comparison with other European countries.
“The British economy is growing much faster than the others and the logic is the same as with tax: if someone earns more, they pay more tax,” said European Commission spokesman, Patrizio Fiorilli, on Friday.
This is while Germany, the most thriving economy of the region, will get a rebate of £779 million under EU’s revised measurement system of the member states’ economic output which unprecedentedly includes the financial profit of such activities as prostitution and illegal drug trade.
Source
       
Posted: 24 Oct 2014 03:11 PM PDT


Polish lawmakers are literally changing the face of a nation, banning junk food in schools in an effort to reduce the increasing rates of child obesity. Starting next school year, children won’t find chips, soda or burgers anywhere near their schools.
Polish MPs took concrete steps in amending the law on food safety and nutrition on Thursday, with 426 voting in favor in the 460-seat lower house of parliament to impose a ban on junk food.
Introduced by the PSL Polish Peasants’ Party, the ban aims to “prevent obesity and pre-obesity in children and teenagers” a government statement said.
Under the new measures to be administered from the start of the next new school year by the health ministry, only foodstuffs approved in a detailed list can be offered to children on school grounds nationwide.
So Polish youths say goodbye to potato chips, soda, burgers and candy, and say hello to a new beginning of healthy food consumption. Foods not released for sale in the schools will also not be advertised on campus or close to its vicinity. Those in charge of schools, are to hold consultation with the parents who will participate in drawing up a list of foodstuffs authorized for sale and consumption on school premises.
The amendment is scheduled to come into force on 1 September 2015. The shops located near school premises will have three months to adapt their business to the new rules.
In Poland, some 51 percent of the entire population is overweight, local media reports citing latest UN statistics. Obesity and overweight affects more than 40 percent of women and about 60 percent of men. As many as 29 percent of 11-year-olds are overweight.
The number of obese children has been steadily growing over past decades, which means a higher risk of diabetes, heart disease and hypertension in young people.
“According to the latest research, poor nutrition negatively affects the psyche of children, makes them more aggressive, have more difficulty paying attention and greater problems in science,” Professor Elisabeth Jarocka-Zither of Olsztyn children’s hospital told Radio Olztyn.
Source
       
Posted: 23 Oct 2014 03:55 PM PDT

The president is “actively formulating plans” to admit Ebola-infected non-citizens just to be treated.
While the bipartisan voice grows to ban Ebola victims from entering the United States, a new report claims that President Obama is considering a plan to bring the world’s Ebola patients to the United States to be treated.
Judicial Watch, the conservative public watchdog group, says in a shocking report that the president is “actively formulating plans” to admit Ebola-infected non-citizens just to be treated.
“Specifically, the goal of the administration is to bring Ebola patients into the United States for treatment within the first days of diagnosis,” said the group.
Such a plan would likely cause a political outcry throughout the nation, on edge over the spread of the virus.
Judicial Watch, which probes federal spending and uses federal and administration sources to root out corruption, said it is unclear who would pay for transporting and treating non-Americans.


Source
       
Posted: 23 Oct 2014 03:49 PM PDT
The boy king’s face as revealed by the ‘virtual autopsy’.
With strong features cast in burnished gold, Tutankhamun’s burial mask projects an image of majestic beauty and royal power.
But in the flesh, King Tut had buck teeth, a club foot and girlish hips, according to the most detailed examination ever of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh’s remains.
And rather than being a boy king with a love of chariot racing, Tut relied on walking sticks to get around during his rule in the 14th century BC, researchers said.
A ‘virtual autopsy’, composed of more than 2,000 computer scans, was carried out in tandem with a genetic analysis of Tutankhamun’s family, which supports evidence that his parents were brother and sister.
The scientists believe that this left him with physical impairments triggered by hormonal imbalances. And his family history could also have led to his premature death in his late teens.
Various myths suggest he was murdered or was involved in a chariot crash after fractures were found in his skull and other parts of his skeleton.
Now scientists believe he may have died of an inherited illness because only one of the breaks occurred before he died, while his club foot would have made chariot racing impossible.
In 1907, Lord Carnarvon George Herbert asked English archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter to supervise excavations in the Valley of the Kings.
Tutankhamun (illustrated) was reliant on a walking stick thanks to his club foot, which may have been due to the fact that his parents were brother and sister.
On 4 November 1922, Carter’s group found steps that led to Tutankhamun’s tomb and spent several months cataloguing the antechamber.
They opened the burial chamber and discovered the the sarcophagus in February the following year.
The revelations are made in BBC One documentary Tutankhamun: The Truth Uncovered.
Albert Zink, from the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Italy, deciphered the truth about the ruler’s parents by studying the royal family’s DNA.
He found that Tut was born after his father Akhenaten, dubbed the heretic king, had a relationship with his sister. Incest was not frowned upon by the ancient Egyptians and they did not know about the health implications for any offspring.
Hutan Ashrafian, a lecturer in surgery at Imperial College London, said that several members of the family appeared to have suffered from ailments which can be explained by hormonal imbalances. He said: ‘A lot of his family predecessors lived to a ripe old age. Only his immediate line were dying early, and they were dying earlier each generation.’
Egyptian radiologist Ashraf Selim: ‘The virtual autopsy shows the toes are divergent, in layman’s terms it’s club foot. He would have been heavily limping.
‘There is only one site where we can say a fracture happened before he died and that is the knee.’
Evidence of King Tut’s physical limitations were also backed up by 130 used walking canes found in his tomb.
King Tutankhamun’s tomb was found in the Valley of the Kings, a valley in Egypt where pharoahs and nobles from the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties (known as the ‘New Kingdom’) in Ancient Egypt were buried from the 16th to 11th century BC (marked).
In November 1922, Howard Carter found steps that led to Tutankhamun’s tomb. He spent several months cataloguing the antechamber before opening the burial chamber and discovering the sarcophagus in February the following year. Carter and an unnamed assistant are shown inspecting Tutankhamun’s inner-most coffin.
Presenter Dallas Campbell, said: ‘Trying to navigate through the intense speculation and politics that surround one of the most famous characters in history is both daunting and thrilling in equal measure.
‘Foolhardy perhaps! But using solid science and a truly multi-disciplinary approach we’ve finally been able to put to bed some of the myths and pre-conceived ideas that have surrounded his life and death, and hopefully add a new chapter that will ensure the Tutankhamun story continues to fascinate.’
Earlier this year, egyptologists from the American University in Cairo shed light on some of the bizarre burial rituals discovered in the tomb, including the fact the king’s penis was embalmed at a 90-degree angle, the only mummy to have ever been found with this feature.
On the outside of the tomb, decorations depicted Tutankhamun as underworld god Osiris, while wall paintings (pictured) showed the king being embraced by the underworld god. It is believed that if Tutankhamun was shown to be this powerful god it would quash a religious revolution taking place in the 1320s BC.
Earlier this year, egyptologists from the American University in Cairo shed light on some of the bizarre burial rituals discovered in the tomb, including the fact the king’s penis was embalmed at a 90-degree angle – the only mummy to have ever been found with this feature.
They claimed that this may have been carried out on purpose to make the king appear like Osiris, the god of the underworld, in an attempt to frighten religious revolutionaries.
At the time of his death in 1323 BC, the father of the teenage Egyptian king was said to be leading a religious revolution in the country.
It is believed Akhenaten wanted to destroy the belief in the Egyptian gods and instead worship a sun disc called the Aten.
Tutanhkhamun was trying to tackle this revolution when he was believed to have broken his leg and died from an infection in the wound. DNA analysis in 2010 also found traces of malaria in his system.
During mummification a decision was made to not only embalm the erect penis, but also to cover the king’s body in black liquid – similar in colour to the skin of Osiris – and remove his heart.
These rituals, according to Professor Salima Ikram from the university, were done in order to make people think Tutankhamun was the underworld god.
At the time of his death in 1323 BC, the father of the teenage Egyptian king was said to be leading a religious revolution in the country. Tutanhkhamun (replica pictured on display in Oxford) was trying to tackle this revolution when he was believed to have broken his leg and died from an infection in the wound.
Source
       
Posted: 23 Oct 2014 03:34 PM PDT


Mexican authorities have ordered the arrest of the mayor of the southern town of Iguala and his wife in connection to a police raid that resulted in the disappearance of dozens of students.
Mexico’s Attorney General Jesus Murillo said on Wednesday that Mayor Jose Luis Abarca had ordered the police raid to prevent the students from disrupting an event.
“We have issued warrants for the arrest of Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca, his wife Mrs. Pineda Villa and police chief Felipe Flores Velazquez, as probable masterminds of the events that occurred in Iguala on September 26,” Murillo said at a press conference.
According to reports, the mayor and his wife are currently on the run.
Police officers, arrested in connection with the clashes, have reportedly confessed to handing the students over to a local drug gang, Guerreros Unidos, which has ties with the mayor’s wife.
On October 16, the leader of the drug gang, Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado, was apprehended by Mexican police.
On September 26, the students protesting against hiring practices went missing following an attack by police forces suspected of having links to drug gangs.
During the police attack six people were killed, three of whom were students.
So far, 52 people have been arrested in connection with the incident, including dozens of police officers, who have connections to the gang.
Meanwhile in Iguala, thousands of teachers and students held protests over the unsolved disappearances. Following the protest, municipal offices were set on fire with Molotov cocktails.
The students are feared to have been massacred by gang members.
According to official data, since December 2012, 1,000 people die every month in violence linked to drug cartels in Mexico.
The Mexican army is still fighting drug gangs across large parts of the country. The government says it has a database of 26,000 missing people in connection with drug-related violence.
Source
       
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 19:07