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Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein releases pro-gay marriage PSA

EU Times — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:57:51 +0000

Advocating: Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, appeared in a commercial supporting same-sex marriage for the Human Rights Campaign

Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, one of Wall Street’s most powerful figures, has become the first major business leader to join a national media campaign in support of same-sex marriage.

Gay rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign published a video on Sunday in which Mr Blankfein, who has headed investment bank Goldman Sachs since 2006, asks viewers to join a ‘majority of Americans who support marriage equality.’

‘America’s corporations learned long ago that equality is just good business and it’s the right thing to do,’ Mr Blankfein, 57, said in the video, which was posted on popular video website YouTube.

Mr Blankfein, who is married to Laura Jacobs Blankfein and has three children, had already made his views on the issue known.

Last year he was one of the financial industry executives to sign an open letter calling on New York state lawmakers to legalize same-sex marriage.

‘Our campaign is all about recruiting unexpected spokespeople so Americans can connect the dots and realize that on an issue like this there can be agreement,’ Human Rights Campaign spokesman Fred Sainz said.

Besides Mr Blankfein, the Americans for Marriage Equality campaign has attracted a dozen personalities on similar videos, including Senator Al Franken, Cleveland Browns linebacker Scott Fujita and Oscar-winning actress Mo’Nique.

‘The fact that we have Mo’Nique and Lloyd Blankfein campaigning on this should show that we can have commonality on the issue,’ Mr Sainz said.

‘We approached Lloyd Blankfein and literally within hours he had said yes, he would do it.’

Gay marriage remains outlawed in more than 40 of the 50 U.S. states and the issue promises to surface in the 2012 presidential election even as economic woes seem to take priority in the minds of voters.

President Barack Obama has supported rights for same sex couples but has stopped short of endorsing marriage, while most of the Republicans seeking to challenge him in November have come out against it.

Mr Blankfein has long been a supporter of the Democratic party, and before Mr Obama was elected to office, he contributed to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Clearly the two have overcome their differences as Mr Blankfein has made at least 10 visits to the Obama White House, a number of which were to discuss possible solutions to the country’s economic crisis.

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Men who Smoke More Likely to Suffer Dementia in Later Life

EU Times — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:06:43 +0000

Long-term risks: Researchers found that smoking in men appears to be associated with more rapid cognitive decline

Those searching for another reason to stick to their resolution to give up cigarettes need look no further. A new study has warned that men who smoke are more likely to suffer dementia in later life.

Researchers found that smoking in men appears to be associated with a greater and more rapid cognitive decline.

Smoking is increasingly recognised as a risk factor for dementia in the elderly. And the number of dementia cases worldwide – estimated at 36 million in 2010 – is rising and is projected to double every 20 years.

Doctor Severine Sabia, of University College London, and her colleagues used the Whitehall II cohort study, which is based on employees of the Civil Service.

They examined the association between smoking history and cognitive decline in the transition from midlife to old age.

Data was obtained from 5,099 men and 2,137 women in the Whitehall II study, with an average age of 56 at the first cognitive assessment.

In the study, researchers analysed data using six assessments of smoking status over 25 years and three cognitive assessments over 10 years. They made four key findings.

The results suggest smoking in men is associated with more rapid cognitive decline, and men who continued to smoke over the follow-up experienced greater decline in all cognitive tests.

In addition, men who quit smoking in the 10 years preceding the first cognitive measure were still at risk of greater cognitive decline, especially in executive function – an umbrella term for various complex cognitive processes involved in achieving a particular goal.

However, long-term ex-smokers did not show faster cognitive decline.

Dr Sabia said: ‘Finally, our results show that the association between smoking and cognition, particularly at older ages, is likely to be underestimated owing to higher risk of death and dropout among smokers.’

She added that the results show no association between smoking and cognitive decline in women, although the underlying reasons remain unclear.

One explanation for the difference they observed between men and women might be the greater quantity of tobacco smoked by men.

The findings were published online in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

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Somalia hails Iran’s Humanitarian Aid

EU Times — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:39:10 +0000

President of the Somali Red Crescent Society has expressed gratitude to Iran for Tehran’s significant contribution of humanitarian aid to the famine-stricken African nation, Press TV reports.

“[We are here] to express our appreciation and thanks to the Iranian Red Crescent for the assistance they have provided for the Somali people,” Ahmad Mohammad Hassan told Press TV after a meeting with the president of the Iranian Red Crescent Society in Tehran.

Hassan added that, “They (Iranian Red Crescent) played a major role in controlling hunger and famine. They were among the first ones to come to Somalia to provide this humanitarian assistance such as food, shelter and medical assistance.”

The UN declared famine in Somalia last July owing to the worst drought in decades. Hundreds of thousands of people fled to the refugee camps in Kenya, Ethiopia and the Somali capital Mogadishu in search of food.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society is now planning to start a new phase of activities in Somalia.

“I think healthcare is the most needed thing there at the moment. It is also important for us to enable people to help themselves and to help create jobs for them. This is one of the general policies of the Islamic Republic,” Abdolhassan Faqih President of the Iranian Red Crescent Society told Press TV.

Iran’s Red Crescent Society currently has a permanent medical center and five makeshift clinics in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, where Iranian physicians provide treatment for the people.

East African countries, including Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti, have experienced a crippling drought over the last year, but the crisis turned into famine only in Somalia, where aid groups have reduced access due to persisting violence between government forces and al-Shabab forces.

Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former Dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society has expressed hope that the upcoming elections in Somalia would lead to the establishment of a government, which can provide enough security and make the job easier for all aid organizations in the African country.

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20 Million Years Old Antarctic Lake Drilled

EU Times — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:06:31 +0000

It took researches 30 years of drilling through a four-kilometer-thick ice to reach the renowned subglacial lake. Most importantly, million years-old secrets will be unveiled without causing harm to the lake’s ecosystem.

“Yesterday [on Sunday] our scientists at the Vostok polar station in the Antarctic completed drilling at depths of 3,768 meters and reached surface of the subglacial lake,” RIA Novosti quoted unnamed Russian scientist.

Lake Vostok is a unique aquatic ecosystem hidden under some four kilometers of ice. Its water has been isolated from the atmosphere – and therefore from the outer biosphere – for millions of years. Scientists believe that surveys of the lake can provide invaluable details on past and future climate changes.

It is not yet known whether the lake’s waters are inhabited – certain bacteria and, perhaps, more complex creatures, could potentially live – but scientists have everything now to find this out. The importance of such potential discovery is difficult to overestimate.

Drilling works around Vostok Station in the Antarctic began in the 1970s, at a time when scientists still had no idea that a lake lay under the four-kilometer-thick ice shield. It was only in 1996 that Russian specialists, supported by their British counterparts, discovered what later proved to be one of the world’s largest freshwater reservoirs.

However, in 1998 drilling was halted only 130 meters from the lake’s surface when the international community voiced concerns that its ancient waters risked being polluted if special precautions and technologies were not employed.

The relevant technology was developed in 2003 in St. Petersburg, and the international working group conceded that it was now safe to continue drilling.

Work resumed in 2005.

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Anti-HIV pill to cause AIDS epidemic?

EU Times — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:27:33 +0000

It has been proven to drastically decrease the chances of contracting HIV before one is even exposed to the virus: Truvada is considered a medical breakthrough by some, yet others fear the once-a-day prevention pill could spur a deadly AIDS epidemic.

The drug — a small, blue pill ingested orally — is currently awaiting FDA approval. Its manufacturer, Gilead, argues that Truvada would reduce the risk of risk of contracting HIV in as many as three-quarters of cases and has been proven so in tests already. AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein is weary of how people will use the pill, however, and warns, “I believe that this could be catastrophic in terms of HIV prevention.”

The argument against approving the pill, says Weinstein, is that it will encourage partners to engage in unprotected sex. While the pill is proven to work in many cases, it is not 100-percent guaranteed. The result, he says, could only make things worse for AIDS and HIV.

It’s a “fabulous drug – it’s one pill once a day, and it has a low side-effect burden,” says Weinstein. Unless the user is aware that the success rate of Truvada is limited and takes extra precautions such as traditional prophylactics though, that ignorance might trigger an AIDS epidemic that could destroy America.

When tested on gay men in four countries, the success rate for the drug was only around 44 percent. When tested by heterosexual couples in two African nations, Truvada proved to be 73 percent successful. Weinstein and other critics are concerned that unless users know the facts, they will learn to rely on the drug and only spread the virus.

“There’s a whole issue of people who aren’t educated on the biology of HIV, who will think that because they’d be taking the pill, they will not become infected,” Cynthia Davis of the College of Medicine and College of Science and Health at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles tells The Final Call.

“You will have groups of people who think, because they’re on this pill and it has this protective factor, that they don’t have to practice safer sex anymore … Because they’re on this medication, they’ll have this false sense of security,” Davis adds.

“Although some of the trial results have been very impressive, the protection with pre-exposure prophylaxis is unlikely to be 100 percent,” writes British medical journal The Lancet. “And making drugs available as prophylaxis could encourage high-risk sexual behavior among those who believe themselves to be protected.”

In America, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that men and women might abstain from using condoms if taking Truvada, based on “the false belief that they are protected” by the pill. Currently all medical options in dealing with HIV are available only after contracting the virus. Truvada, on the other hand, is administered as a precautionary measure — what physicians consider a “pre-exposure prophylaxis.” While test trials have shown substantial success in the effectiveness of Truvada, there is still plenty of room for the pill to go awry.

In the test labs of the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s HIV Research clinic, Dr. Albert Liu is conducting studies of his own to see if high-risk behavior could emerge if people learn to rely on the pill’s only limited success. “We don’t know the answer, and that’s why it’s important to study it,” he tells Huffington Post.

Elsewhere the medical community has acknowledged that the development of the drug could be considered a breakthrough, but with a window of contracting HIV still better than one-out-of-two odds, it only does so much to stop the spread.

In California, where Weinstein’s AIDS Healthcare Foundation is based, nearly 42,000 residents were living with HIV as of June 2011. So concerning is the issue that the Los Angeles Council voted only this month to make condom use mandatory in most adult films. In LA, it is believed that 90 percent of the nation’s porn is produced. Nationally, the US saw around 50,000 new cases of HIV outbreaks in patients each year between 2007 and 2009.

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Europe cold spell kills 223 with colder days expected

EU Times — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:05:29 +0000

People take pictures of waves on a frozen sea in Constanta, 230 kilometres east from Bucharest, Romania on February 1, 2012

At least 223 people have died during a seven-day cold spell in eastern and central Europe where temperatures are expected to plummet even further over the weekend.

Most of the victims are from the European Union’s poorest countries, including Ukraine with as many as 101 people killed. Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Latvia have also suffered large casualties.

The villagers were found frozen to death on the side of the road or in their unheated homes as temperatures dropped to as much as -38.1 degrees in some parts of the continent.

While Eastern Europe struggles to cope with record low temperatures, the severe cold has claimed lives in other parts of the continent as well, including three people in Austria and Greece.

France recorded its first death after an 82-year-old man died of hypothermia.

Thousands of people are still trapped in snow-blocked mountain villages in countries like Serbia and Bosnia.

Italy is also witnessing snowfall not seen in over a decade, with many Venetian canals frozen and Roman tourist sites closed.

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25,000 Ducks Gassed to Death in Australia for Fear of Avian Virus Outbreak

EU Times — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:29:00 +0000

A government biosecurity officer at Golden Duck Farms in Victoria after birds tested positive for avian influenza.

A national disease emergency plan has been activated to prevent an outbreak of deadly bird flu in Australia after the discovery of infected birds at two free-range duck farms north of Melbourne.

All 25,000 ducks on two Golden Duck Farms properties at Gisborne and Mickleham were being gassed to death last night and today using carbon dioxide, in a pre-emptive effort to protect the $2.4 billion national poultry industry.

Victoria’s chief veterinary officer Andrew Cameron said the discovery of the low pathogenic avian influenza virus on the duck farms posed little current risk to humans.

But he said the outbreak held the potential to become “a significant human health issue” because of the tendency of the virus, which can be passed between birds and humans, to mutate into highly virulent sub-strains.

“That is why we had to take this step to destroy all the ducks now because if it (the virus) got into chickens, it could soup up very rapidly and become highly pathogenic,” Dr Cameron said.

“And that is not just a threat to the poultry industry, which we want to be able to continue to say is avian influenza-free, but to humans because (a mutation) could cause disease in people.”

Government biosecurity officers in full protective clothing were at work on both farms last night, carrying chemical drums to the duck sheds where the birds were to be destroyed.

It is the first confirmed outbreak of the infectious avian influenza virus in Australia since 1997, and the first in a commercial duck flock.

It is not yet known how the virus infected the Victorian farm ducks, but wild ducks are considered a possible source.

The duck farm virus is of the H5 subtype. But Australia’s Chief Veterinary Officer, Mark Schipp, stressed it was not the high pathogenic H5N1 strain that has killed millions of poultry and 350 people worldwide since 2003, when its transmission from birds to humans first became evident.

In Australia, there have been no cases of H5N1 avian influenza found in either birds or humans.

An emergency meeting of the national Consultative Committee on Emergency Animal Diseases last Friday approved a mass cull of all ducks on the two Golden Duck farms as the only option, after the positive disease tests for the virus were confirmed.

The Mickleham and Gisborne farms have been placed in strict quarantine isolation, forbidding movement of all birds, vehicles and people in and out of the properties unless under strict government supervision.

Dr Cameron said that according to the nationally agreed emergency animal disease response strategy for low and high pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks, all ducks were being destroyed, their bodies disposed of on-site, and the two farms disinfected and decontaminated.

All chickens or ducks on properties within the restricted zone on Melbourne’s semi-rural fringe are being urgently tested for avian influenza, including a commercial chicken-meat farm across the road from the New Gisborne duck farm. Test results so far have been negative, but Dr Cameron said it would be premature to declare the outbreak contained or the virus eradicated. He said it was heartbreaking for the duck farmer involved, since the ducks do not show any symptoms of the avian influenza virus.

“But the flock destruction has to be done, it is the nationally agreed approach for the good of the entire national poultry industry.”

Duck farmer Henning Skallebaek, who could not be contacted yesterday, will be compensated by the federal government and the poultry industry for the loss of his 25,000 ducks.

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The Bacillus of Immortality found in Siberia

EU Times — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:04:58 +0000

In mountain permafrost in Mamontovaya, Yakutia (Siberia), Russian researchers discovered a previously unknown species of bacteria. Mice injected in the body with a solution containing these organisms, were healthier and lived longer than their counterparts. Have the scientists discovered the secrets of immortality?

The strange bacillus found in mammoth Mountain in the Siberian Republic of Yakutia is three million years old and appears to have special mechanisms which allow it to stay alive in the most inhospitable temperatures and conditions. It successfully shares at temperatures of five degrees Celsius above zero.

The Bacillus, Bacillus F, was injected into mice and increased life expectancy, having a positive impact upon the quality of life indicators of older specimens. The scientists involved in the study suspect that the Bacillus has properties which allow it to survive and create specific immune systems, according to the team leader, lead researcher of the Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine Academy of Sciences of Russia, Nadezhda Mironovoa.

In addition, the researchers examined mice that were injected with this Bacillius F, using MRI and found the existence of two types of mediators that were significantly higher: this is glutamate and taurine, and have properties of immune regulation and prolonging life expectancy the cell.

In this case, the first mediator is “responsible” for psychic stimulation, and second – by energetic processes. Thus, the metabolism of the vaccinated mice was accelerated, and if calculated according to age, in animals injected with bacteria, is 20-30% higher.

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79 Dead in Egypt Football Riot

EU Times — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:38:01 +0000

Team El-Ahly football players get away from the field during a football match riot at a stadium in Port Said of Egypt on Feb. 1, 2012. The death toll from a football riot in Egypt's Port Said rose to 79, state TV reported on Wednesday night.

A riot in the Egyptian city of Port Said has left 79 dead and hundreds wounded after football fans stormed the pitch before engaging in running battles inside the stadium. The government has announced three days of mourning in the country.

The majority of the victims died from suffocation and head injuries, health ministry officials said. Doctors are calling on the local population to donate blood for the injured because the violence has drained hospital reserves.

Some of the more seriously injured were evacuated by transport helicopter from the northern city of Port Said to be treated in military hospitals. The army also dispatched troops to the city to prevent further violence from flaring.

Stadium mayhem

The deadly fight broke out on Wednesday night following a match between the local Al-Masry and the visiting Al-Ahly football teams, which have a long history of rivalry.

The home players scored a rare victory against one of Egypt’s strongest clubs, and the team’s fans rushed onto the pitch.

Some of the Al-Masry fans were said to be offended by an insulting sign held up by Al-Ahly supporters held during the game. In a bid to take revenge, they cornered rival fans, players and coaches.

“The players’ room has turned into a morgue,” said Ahmed Nagy, Al-Ahly’s goalkeeper and coach.

Speaking to the club’s television channel, player Mohamed Abo Treika described the violence as a war.

“This is not football. This is a war and people are dying in front of us. There is no movement and no security and no ambulances… This is a horrible situation and today can never be forgotten,” he said, as cited by Al Arabiya.

As the ensuing clash erupted, thousands of people tried to flee the violence. Dozens were crushed in the resulting stampede.

Although what triggered the violence remains unclear, Bel Trew, a freelance journalist talking live to RT from Cairo described eye witness reports of security forces who “stepped aside and actually opened the gates which allowed the two fan clubs to come onto the pitch and fight each other,” raising doubts over the security in place at the match.

The journalist spoke of exits to the stadium being blocked, preventing the Al-Ahly fans targeted by the violence from escaping, and causing a fatal crush. She also referred to eyewitness accounts of knife wounds, saying, “we believe the Port Said fans may have been carrying knives.”

While shedding light on the possible contributing factors that led to the Port Said violence Bel Trew signaled the “vacuum of security” that followed the January anniversary of the uprisings that overthrew former leader President Mubarak. She called the lack of a security presence “unprecedented” and linked it to the sharp escalation of crime in the Egypt during recent months.

Mourning and conspiracy

The Egyptian government has called an emergency parliamentary meeting to discuss the deadly football row at Port Said, amid claims that the ruling military council allowed the violence to happen – and even had a hand in causing it.

In response to the violence, Egyptian Prime Minister has accepted the resignation of the governor of Port Said and dissolved the board of the Egyptian Football Association. In addition to this, a full investigation will be launched into why the match went ahead given early signs that fan violence was likely.

FIFA, the international governing body of the game, has appealed to Egypt to release the exact details of the tragedy, while the EU has called for an independent probe to be carried out.

The Egyptian state football federation has postponed all national league matches indefinitely. A match which was underway when the violence in Port Said started was halted.

Thousands of Egyptians took to the streets overnight to honor the victims of the riot, as the country announced three days of mourning. In Suez the commemoration was marred when some radical Al-Ahly fans clashed with police. The attack on a security post was cut short with tear gas.

The tragedy, coming on the heels of the first anniversary of Egypt’s revolution, may have political reverberations. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Isam Al Aryan accused allies of ousted President Hosni Mubarak of orchestrating the bloody clashes.

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Cold spell kills 83 in Europe

EU Times — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:35:54 +0000

Seagulls fly over frozen sea as icicles covers a fence in the city of Constanta, 230 kilometers east of the Romanian capital Bucharest, on February 1, 2012.

Severe cold spell has killed at least 83 people in Europe as temperatures dropped to below minus 30C (minus 22F) in some eastern regions of the continent.

Ukrainian officials on Wednesday reported that the number of the deaths attributed to the cold weather had risen to 43, with 28 people having been found dead on the streets, eight dying in hospitals, and seven in their homes.

The country’s Emergency Situations Ministry said more than 720 Ukrainians had also been hospitalized with hypothermia and frostbite.

Extremely low temperatures also caused schools and colleges to be closed in the capital Kiev.

In Romania, where parts of the Black Sea froze near the coastline, the death toll from the cold weather has risen to 14. Officials with the country’s Health Ministry say hundreds more were hospitalized with hypothermia.

Four more people died from hypothermia in Bulgaria, where 16 towns recorded their lowest temperatures in 100 years.

In Poland, five more people died because of cold snap, bringing the overall number to 20 since Friday.

German media reported that ice and sub-zero temperatures had led to the deaths of two women.

In Turkey, three crewmembers from a ship that sank during a storm in the Black Sea were saved near the northwestern port of Eregli, but eight people are still missing.

Many schools also remained closed across Hungary.

Other cold-weather-related deaths have been reported across the region, including in Russia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.

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The Cancer Industry Doesn’t Want a Cure, Even if it’s a Pharmaceutical

EU Times — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:59:35 +0000

A safe and effective cure for cancer has been discovered with a drug that was once used for unusual metabolic problems. Yet, the cancer industry shows no interest with following up on dichloroacetate (DCA) research from University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, reported in 2007. That’s because DCA is no longer patented.

That research also confirmed cancer as a metabolic malfunction, not a weird mutation of cells often explained away as a genetic issue. But the medical mafia doesn’t want you to hear about it. But it confirms what most alternative cancer therapists already know.

Since Nixon declared the “war on cancer” in the 1970s, the cancer industry has succeeded with raising money for researching very expensive chemo substances at $50,000 to $100,000 per round or more for toxic therapies that rarely work.

Chemo drugs usually lead to demanding more business with drugs to ease terrible side effects (http://www.naturalnews.com/034761_cancer_drugs_toxicity_Voraxaze.html). Meanwhile, more are getting cancer and more are dying from it, mostly because of the toxic treatments.

Explaining DCA research results

Evangelos Michelakis and the Alberta University research team tested DCA on human cancer cells outside the body and in cancerous mice with profound success. DCA was once used for unusual metabolic disorders. The worst side effects, which rarely occur, include some numbness and an affected gait.

The mice were fed DCA in water, and in weeks they had remarkable tumor shrinkage. This indicates DCA can be taken orally. DCA works by restoring the cells’ mitochondria. Michelakis and his team had discovered that the mitochondria in cancer cells are not permanently damaged and irreparable. This is what mainstream medicine thinks.

With mitochondria malfunctioning, cancer cells use glucose fermentation for survival energy. This fermentation occurs when glycolysis (glucose conversion) occurs in an anaerobic cellular environment, which can be created by benign tumor masses, toxins, and low pH levels.

DCA restores mitochondria in cells to make them function properly. Another function of normal mitochondria is signaling apoptosis, or cellular self destruction. Normal cells die and become replaced constantly. But with cancer cells, the apoptosis signal is nullified, making cancer cells “immortal.”

The Alberta University researchers also realized that glycolysis fermentation in cancer cells produces lactic acid. The lactic acid breaks down the collagen holding those cells together in a tumor. This allows cancer cells to easily break away from a tumor shrinking with mainstream therapies.

The researchers reasoned this is why cancer metastasizes or spreads to different parts of the body or reappears after remission from chemo.

Tragic hypocrisy

Alternative cancer therapies have little or no problem with metastatic cancer or even cancer reoccurring after remission. Most alternative cancers simply cure cancers completely.

DCA offers the cancer industry an opportunity to come up with a pharmaceutical cure that is much cheaper and safer than their current standard of care. Yet the cancer industry is ignoring this opportunity. Instead, DCA is a homeless orphan begging for research funds to avoid legal issues with off label use on cancer.

Alternative cancer practitioners have always simply tried out and when they succeeded shared them with others who cared more about healing than money and power.

The medical mafia has created a matrix that demands big bucks to make big bucks for sick care instead of curing. Everyone in on the scam makes out financially. The cancer industry accuses alternative cancer therapists of quackery and taking advantage of the desperately ill for financial gain. Accusing others of your motives and crimes is called projection.

The medical/pharmaceutical complex is crony capitalism that doesn’t want a cure for cancer from anywhere.

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Everyone could have been saved – Concordia tragedy survivors

EU Times — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:12:30 +0000

They still can’t sleep at night since the Costa Concordia put them through the ordeal of their lives. A Russian couple that made it ashore safe and sound believe every passenger could still be alive had the rescue operation been better organized.

They are just two of the passengers from over 4,000 people onboard the massive cruise ship Costa Concordia. Denis Golovkin and Olga Gridneva still have trouble sleeping at night.

“I don’t understand how they couldn’t have rescued everyone considering the liner sank no further than half a kilometer from land, in warm weather,” says Olga.

Sixteen bodies have so far been recovered and 16 people are still missing after the 290-meter long cruise liner struck a rock near the Tuscan island of Giglio.

Olga and Denis got onboard only two and a half hours prior to the disaster at the port of Civitavecchia. For them it was just the beginning of their cruise, as the liner was picking up passengers along the way.

The couple had just had dinner – incidentally, to the tune of the Titanic theme song – and were back in their cabin when the ship hit the reef.

“Our glasses, laptops and cellphones flew off the table,” Olga recalls. “The boat went too close to the shoreline where it wasn’t supposed to be. And we certainly felt it, like a really strong crash or shaking…”

They grabbed their life vests and Denis suggested taking warm clothes, considering the temperature outside was 12 degrees Celsius.

“I thought that we might actually have to jump overboard,” Olga says, “nobody was supervising us, we spent an hour and a half on the deck, and the speakers were saying, “Don’t worry, everything is fine…” It was very scary. It was a large ship, the height of a multi-storey building. When a sensible individual starts thinking that they might have to jump overboard they assess their abilities and realize that they don’t feel like jumping from this height at all.”

There were hardly any crew members in sight helping people. This Thursday, Italy’s top-ranking Coast Guard official, Marco Brusco, said that the Concordia’s Captain Francesco Schettino lost “a precious hour,” which made evacuating the ship even more difficult. Had the order been given earlier, “the lifeboats could have been launched calmly, people could have been reassured,” Brusco said in Senate testimony.

Instead, the evacuation was chaotic. No one knew where to run, what to do and no instructions were given out so a lot of people couldn’t leave the ship for quite a while. Denis and Olga were lucky to get off in one of the first lifeboats. Olga says that passengers were totally misinformed about what was going on and that no one had a clear picture of the real state of affairs: “Nobody told us to go out on deck. We did that on our own, following our instincts and based on what we could see and understand.”

Hours later, safe but still tense, people recounted their stories to each other. Many said there wasn’t enough room in the boats, with the situation only worsened by the fact that it was difficult to get the boats down to the water from the upper decks, especially on the portside where it proved simply impossible. Denis, an experienced seafarer, says the crew wasn’t up to the task: “I saw a crew member climb into the boat. He could hardly start the engine. On top of it all, before mooring at the pier, we had been circling and circling for a long time. In other words, the boat was driven not by a specialist.”

There were also reports that rich Russians were buying seats in the lifeboats – but Olga dismissed them with conviction in her voice: “One should bear in mind that this cruise was mostly for economy-class passengers. There were no particularly rich Russians on this ship.”

Twice the size of the Titanic and three times the length of a football pitch, the cruise ship Costa Concordia would have been much worse off had the tragedy happened further away from the shore and in colder waters. So far, the tragedy on the Concordia has claimed 16 lives. However as divers continue to comb the submerged parts of the ship, neither Denis nor Olga can comprehend how there could have been any casualties at all: “In the heart of Europe. There must have been enough lifeboats for everyone had the rescue operation been at least somewhat organized, or had there been some instructions. If so, I believe we wouldn’t have lost anyone.”

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Watching Bird Flu

EU Times — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:40:08 +0000

Avian Influenza, or A H5N1, has a mortality rate among humans of twenty to thirty times that of Spanish Flu which killed up to fifth million people in 1918/1919 and would be far, far worse than even the Black Death which assailed Europe in the fourteenth century. The spread of new cases is alarming, constant and deadly. Humankind must watch bird flu like a hawk…and not only.

We saw what the World Health Organization did during the Swine Flu or A H1N1 outbreak in 2009. In fact, it was more than an outbreak, it was a worldwide pandemic. The WHO limited itself to doing nothing except inform us as to what was happening as the virus swept the globe.

So what more can we expect this time as something called Avian Influenza, or A H5N1, starts to take on alarming proportions, having a hugely superior mortality rate: 344 out of 683 cases so far in 15 countries? That is a global mortality rate of over 50 per cent. If a pandemic swept the world and one third of the population became infected, then 1.15 billion people would die, according to these statistics.

The most recent case has been confirmed by the Chinese Ministry of Health, a 39-year-old male from Guiyan City, Province of Guizhou, who fell ill on January 6 and died on January 22. This followed a case in Vietnam, where 60 patients out of 120 cases have died from the disease, Indonesia, where 152 of 183 bird flu cases have been fatal (82% mortality rate), Cambodia (17 deaths out of 19 cases) and Egypt (55 deaths out of 159 cases) all in January.

The countries affected so far are Bangladesh, Cambodia, PR China, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam.

The highly pathogenic H5N1 virus subtype first appeared among humans in 1997 in Hong Kong SAR, China, reappearing in 2003 and 2004. The incubation period is considered to be at least seven days, maybe as long as 17 for H5N1. Symptoms are a high fever, sometimes nausea, diarrea and vomiting, abdominal pain, chest pain, bleeding from the nose and gums and the development of acute respiratory distress five days into the disease, a crackling sound when breathing in and sometimes, bloody sputum.

WHO: The importance of monitoring Influenza variants
The World Health Organization this week reported “several human infections with variant influenza viruses currently thought to be circulating in swine populations” which have so far been contained to small clusters. The WHO also refers to the incidence of bird-to-human transmission of Bird Flu, or A H5N1, which is also contained inside clusters.

However, claims the WHO, “because influenza viruses are unpredictable, they have the possibility to change and become more transmissible among humans as shown by the emergence of the influenza pandemic H1N1 virus in 2009″. The WHO therefore urges all health authorities to be vigilant and reminds them it is compulsory to report all new strains of flu observed.

Scientists create H5N1: Bird Flu – Twice as deadly as the Black Death
If A H1N1 (Swine Flu) had a high incidence rate and a mortality rate at the higher end of the normal parameters, then A H5N1 (Bird Flu) is entirely different, having a global mortality rate of around 60%. That is why scientists, for purposes of studying this strain further, have performed genetic alterations on the H5N1 virus in a laboratory environment (5 alterations) and have managed to create an airborne strain which would provide human-to-human transmission. In plain language, it would be twice as virulent and deadly as the Black Death.

The new strain produced eventually proved to be highly transmissible among laboratory ferrets, generally considered to be a good indication as to what would happen among humans, something that has the biosecurity community hearing alarm bells ringing because of a potential leak or the threat of the secret falling into the wrong hands.

The researchers made five changes to the genetic composition of the virus and observed how it interacted with the respiratory tract, so as to better understand the mechanisms which might be involved in a human-to-human transmissible H5N1 outbreak. The alterations allowed the virus to attack to nasal and tracheal cells, however it was still initially difficult to spread through close contact. Therefore, the research team decided to make it easier.

Exposing ferrets to infected material from other ferrets injected with the virus, and repeating the process ten times, they managed to develop a strain of H5N1 as transmissible as seasonal flu. This latest research has horrified some sections of the medical community, which consider that is is not a good idea to turn a deadly virus into a highly contagious one, much less publish the results. For this reason the details of the research are as yet unavailable.

1918 Spanish Flu
This would not be the first time a deadly Influenza virus has been created, however. In 2005, scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reconstructed the H1N1 1918 Pandemic Influenza virus (Spanish Flu), which killed between 50 and 100million people worldwide. The entire gene sequence of this virus was deciphered and the scientists were able to recreate viruses with similar characteristics.

The H1N1 Pandemic Influenza virus was the worst outbreak in history and genetically, it was different from any other flu viruses that had hitherto attack humans. The US-based researcher and scientist Jeffery Taubenberger has described the 1918 virus as “the most bird-like of all mammalian flu viruses”.
Food for thought. It is evident that with the constant mutations occurring to the Influenza virus, sooner or later a species leap may occur. Until it does, let us all remember a few basic steps we can take to avoid contagion.

* If you are sick, stay at home;
* Cough or sneeze into a tissue or the bend of your arm. Dispose of the tissue down a flush toilet;
* Wash the hands frequently;
* Use a sanitising hand gel regularly;
* Wipe all surfaces you touch upon arriving home with a tissue soaked in an alcohol-based substance or sanitising hand gel, namely door handles, keys, light switches and taps;
* When outside, avoid touching surfaces where the flu virus can collect, such as door handles, elevator buttons, etc. Wear gloves, use sanitizing hand gel upon arrival in a building. Avoid touching the mouth or eyes.

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Sumatran Elephant on brink of Extinction

EU Times — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:59:32 +0000

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has warned that the Sumatran elephant could be extinct in less than 30 years as half of the species’ population has been lost in one generation.

According to a statement issued by WWF, an estimated number of 2,400 to 2,800 Sumatran elephants are alive that is down about 50 percent from a 1985 estimate.

“The Sumatran elephant joins a growing list of Indonesian species that are critically endangered, including the Sumatran orangutan, the Javan and Sumatran rhinos and the Sumatran tiger,” added Carlos Drews director of WWF’s Global Species Program in the statement.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has recently raised its listing of the Sumatran elephant subspecies from ‘endangered’ to ‘critically endangered’.

Experts say the major cause of the situation is the deforestation of the species’ habitat in order to use it for agriculture.

In central Sumatra’s Riau Province only, the rapid deforestation has cut the number of the elephants by 80 percent in less than 25 years.

The organization has called on the Indonesian government to ban any kind of deforestation in the elephants’ habitats until a conservation strategy is devised.

Source

McDonalds Employee Films Mouse in Bag of Buns

EU Times — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:29:21 +0000

A Mouse can be seen going buck wild in a bread bag at McDonalds. Despite this unsanitary event, according to the former McDonald’s employee Karruim Demaio, bosses at the West Oak Lane branch in Philadelphia ordered workers to brush off the droppings and serve the buns to unsuspecting customers.