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Friday, May 23, 2008

Bangladesh reported its first human case of the H5N1 strain of Avian flu on Thursday. According to a representative of the Bangladesh health ministry, the 16-month old boy initially tested negative for the disease. His virus culture tested positive in tests performed by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The boy is from the capital city of Dhaka in the Dhaka District.

“Although there is no farm in the neighbourhood we suspect that he got the illness after his family bought chickens from a farm,” said senior health ministry official Mahmudur Rahman. Rahman is the head of Bangladesh’s Institute of Epidemiology and Disease Control and Research. He asserted that the government had the disease under control, and that physicians and hospitals in the country were adequately prepared.

Rahman said Thursday that the child had recovered from the disease. “The child was found infected by H5N1 but after treatment he has recovered and is now doing well,” said Rahman in a statement to Reuters.

The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the positive test results on Friday. This case in Bangladesh brings the total number of countries in the world with human infections from the disease up to 15. “When a disease is so widespread in poultry, it is really a matter of time before you get a human case. It shows the need to control the disease in animals if you are going to reduce the chances of transmission to humans,” said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl in a statement to Reuters.

The boy had previously been diagnosed with H5N1 in January, but the CDC only confirmed the case this week. In a statement in Agence France-Presse, senior government official Saluddin Khan said: “There is no reason to panic. The child contracted the H5N1 bird flu virus in January but we only got confirmation from the CDC on Wednesday it was a human bird flu case.”

Khan commented on preventative measures being taken by the government, saying, “we’re destroying the birds and eggs as soon as we have any report of bird flu at any farm in the country.”

Bangladesh was first hit by bird flu in February 2007, and after a period of dormancy, was hit again in January 2008. Outbreaks subsided in March when peaking temperatures killed off the virus. Over one million birds were slaughtered during the outbreaks, and at the peak the outbreaks were the cause of a loss 1.5 million jobs in the Bangladesh poultry industry, which is the largest in the world. The Avian influenza has spread through 47 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts.

The H5N1 virus seldom infects humans, but according to WHO there have been 382 human cases globally since 2003, including 241 deaths.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Cyprus today became the fifth member state to seek access to funds from the European Union’s bailout fund. The Cypriots join Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and neighbours Greece.

The move was triggered after the Cyprus Popular Bank, the nation’s second-largest bank, asked the government for recapitalisation. The bank has been hit hard, as has the wider Cypriot banking sector, by exposure to Greek economics. A Greek restructure of €200 billion in debt has caused the bank a €3.65 billion loss, and money is being lost on loans domestically and to Greek customers.

Cyprus Popular Bank chairman Michalis Sarris today revealed talks are also underway with China about a possible loan. Low taxes and regulation have attracted large amounts of foreign money to Cyprus, including much Russian money, producing a banking sector far larger than most nations that size. Russia and China are both viewed by officials as possibilities to seek loans from, and Russia last year agreed to a €2.5 billion loan to allow Cypriot financial restructuring.

The bailout request comes within days of Cypriot president Demetris Christofias giving an interview to Greek newspaper To Vima in which the EU’s only communist leader criticised international bailout policies. He complained the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund acted like a “colonial force” by forcing nations receiving bailouts to agree to austerity measures.

Cyprus, due to take over the rotating EU presidency this week, hopes to limit the scope of its bailout to the banking sector. This is similar to Spain, and unlike the other bailed-out nations. Ratings agency Fitch today relegated Cyprus to “junk”, a reflection of how much money may be required.

“The purpose of the required assistance is to contain the risks to the Cypriot economy, notably those arising from the negative spillover effects through its financial sector, due to its large exposure in the Greek economy,” read a government statement. Former President George Vasiliou, an economist, recently claimed markets were failing to recognise the differences between Greece and Cyprus: “Cyprus’s problems are the result of a Greek tragedy, and the ratings agencies are not distinguishing between Greek-speaking people, whether we are in Athens or Nicosia”.

Cyprus has recently discovered large natural gas fields, and unemployment at 10% is below the likes of Greece (22%) and Spain (24%). Cypriot officials predict a growth in the economy, although the International Monetary Fund expects a contraction. There are also concerns a Greek withdrawal from the euro would damage confidence in investors, but Vasiliou predicts “if Greece has to exit the euro, it will not be the end of Cyprus.”

Friday, November 30, 2012

Qatari non-profit organization Gulf Organization for Research and Development (GORD) launched a low emissions car at the 2012 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 18) in Doha. The car was designed and developed in Qatar.

Revealed during a press conference at the Qatar National Convention Centre, the car in addition to an internal combustion engine, includes an automotive thermoelectric generator designed to capture waste heat to produce hydrogen. GORD expects the heat waste collecting system to be compatible with any gasoline or compressed natural gas car.

GORD chairman Dr Al-Horr summarised the key concepts of the invention in a statement saying, “Our car produces electricity at no cost by capturing thermal waste energy, reducing costs and eliminating the need for an external source of electricity. Also, bulky compressed-hydrogen cylinders are a thing of the past, as our concept accomplishes the production of hydrogen by using water through fuel cells integrated within the car.”

Most of the energy in Qatari vehicle comes from the the car’s gasoline tank, supplemented by a thin film photo-voltaic panel on the roof. Normally in a combustion engine, chemical energy stored in a fuel, such as gasoline, is converted into heat energy through combustion. This heat energy is then converted into mechanical energy, manifested as an increase in pressure in the combustion chamber due to the kinetic energy of the combustion gases. The kinetic energy of these combustion gases are then converted into work; because of the inefficiencies in converting chemical energy into useful work, internal combustion engines have a theoretical maximum effiecincy of 37% (with what is achievable in day to day applications being about half of this). Of the chemical energy in the consumed fuel used by an internal combustion engine 40% is dissipated as waste heat. However, the Qatari vehicle uses a thermoelectric generator to convert this waste heat into electricity. Such generators are used in space vehicles, and produce electricity when thermoelectric materials are subjected to a temperature gradient, the greater the gradient the greater the amount of electrcity produced. In the GORD vehicle the electricity produced is used to electrolyse potable water to produce hydrogen which can be introduced into the vehicle’s existing fuel system.

The researchers showed that the heat waste collection engine caused a decrease in the car’s emissions, including a decrease of carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide emissions by more than 50%, the fuel efficiency increasing by 20%. On its website, GORD said that the heat waste collector engine is universal, “Any car can be adapted to accommodate the system as it doesn’t alter any electro-mechanical systems”.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Hackers claiming to be associated with the internet activist group Anonymous have attacked the website belonging to the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) and hacked into the Twitter account belonging to Shirley Phelps-Roper, the Church’s spokeswoman. The attacks are part of an operation dubbed ‘#OpWestBor’ on Twitter and is in response to the Church’s decision to picket funerals of victims of the December 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

“Westboro will picket Sandy Hook Elementary School to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment,” said Phelps in a post to her Twitter account on Saturday.

On Sunday, in a video posted on YouTube, Anonymous announced their intentions saying, “From the time you have received this message, our attack protocol has past been executed and your downfall is underway. Do not attempt to delude yourselves into thinking you can escape our reach, for we are everywhere, and all-seeing, in the same sense as God. … We will render you obsolete. We will destroy you. We are coming.” The Church’s website has been unreachable for most of the day. At the time of this report, the website was unreachable. As a result of the breach, Anonymous claims to have gained access to and leaked alleged personal information such as names, home addresses and telephone numbers belonging to Church members.

Also as part of the operation, early yesterday morning, a member of Anonymous called ‘CosmoTheGod’ hacked the Twitter account belonging to Phelps, posting a ‘tweet’ saying, “This account is now being ran by @CosmoTheGod #UGNazi #oops.” As of this report, Anonymous still has control of it.

This isn’t the first time hackers took control of the Church’s website. In 2011 the Church blamed Anonymous for circulating a letter claiming an attack on the Church’s website was imminent and blamed them for taking down their website in an earlier attack, something the group denied. Shortly after the incident, user “th3j3st3r” on Twitter claimed responsibility for circulating the letter and the initial attack. When Phelps and one of the group’s members were interviewed on live television shortly thereafter, she denied hackers could break into their website or take it offline. However; during the interview, Anonymous hacked into the Church’s website, defaced it and took it offline.

“I was just going to say in the time that Shirley was blabbing her religious preachings I actually did some business and I think if you check downloads.westborobaptistchurch right now you’ll see a nice message from Anonymous”, said Anonymous nine minutes into the interview.

On December 14, a gunman identified as 20 year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother Nancy then went into Sandy Hook Elementary school carrying a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle and two other handguns, where he opened fire killing 26 people, 20 of them children between the ages of five and ten years old. Shortly after the incident, Lanza shot himself, committing suicide.

See the discussion page for instructions on adding schools to this list and for an alphabetically arranged listing of schools.

Due to the damage by Hurricane Katrina and subsequent flooding, a number of colleges and universities in the New Orleans metropolitan area will not be able to hold classes for the fall 2005 semester. It is estimated that 75,000 to 100,000 students have been displaced. [1]. In response, institutions across the United States and Canada are offering late registration for displaced students so that their academic progress is not unduly delayed. Some are offering free or reduced admission to displaced students. At some universities, especially state universities, this offer is limited to residents of the area.

Friday, November 3, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Scarborough-Agincourt (Ward 40). One candidate responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Sunny Eren, Norm Kelly (incumbent), George Pappas, and Winston Ramjeet.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

A man has died after riding the Expedition Everest roller coaster at Walt Disney World‘s Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida.

The man, identified as Jeffery Reed, 44 from Navarre, was given CPR after being pulled off the ride unconscious, and was taken in an ambulance to Celebration Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Reed had no external signs of injuries, and police are investigating to determine whether or not Reed may have had any pre-existing medical conditions. An autopsy is to be performed on the body, but details have not yet been released.

Reed was believed to have been conscious at least 50 seconds before the ride ended, when a camera took a picture of him. Cameras are sometimes placed on roller coasters so that riders can buy a photo of themselves as they go down a hill.

It is reported that the ride, which opened in 2006, was functioning properly at the time of the incident, but has been closed until further notice.

The Walt Disney World website for the ride says “WARNING! For safety, you should be in good health and free from high blood pressure, heart, back or neck problems, motion sickness, or other conditions that could be aggravated by this adventure. Expectant mothers should not ride.”

Since 1989, 15 people have died while riding on rides at the park; many who have died on park rides have had prior aliments.

A four-year-old who died on the Body Wars ride in 1995 had a cardiac conduction defect, which is a congenital heart condition; the mother insisted the girl had no history of health problems, but relatives told officials that the girl was being treated at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston for undisclosed reasons.

Autopsy of a boy who died on Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster in 2006 found he too had a congenital heart problem. In 2006, a 49-year-old German tourist died in a hospital after she fell ill on the Mission: Space ride, from bleeding brain caused by high blood pressure, not provoked by the ride.

Sunday, February 13, 2005Cordon-bleu chef Homaru Cantu has announced a technique which allows him to create dishes made of edible, inkjet printed paper. Cantu, a head chef at the Moto restaurant in Chicago, has modified an ink-jet printer with the help of computer specialists from local firm Deep Labs and loaded it with cartridges containing concoctions of fruit and vegetables. Using this modified printer Cantu then prints onto edible sheets of soybean and potato starch tasty images downloaded from the web.

“You can make an ink-jet printer do just about anything,” says Cantu. Once the items have been printed they are dipped into a powder made of soy sauce, sugar and vegetables before then being further processed by frying, freezing, or baking them.

Cantu has applied the technique to the printing of menus so that diners can further flavor their soups by ripping up the menu and adding it to the dish.

He hopes that his idea may find its way into popular media. “Just imagine going through a magazine and looking at an ad for pizza. You wonder what it tastes like, so you rip a page out and eat it,” says the chef who is working at perfecting the flavors and has applied for a patent on the technique.

Cantu also has plans for further culinary innovations. He plans to cook steak using a handheld laser that will sear the inside of the steak well done whilst leaving the outside medium rare. He also plans to use the laser to produce bread baked from the inside out thus producing a crust on the inside.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

One of the most important arguments in the run-up to the Iraq war made by Colin Powell in his United Nations speech and President Bush in his State of the Union address was that Iraq had an active biological weapons program and possessed mobile biological weapons labs. According to an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the main source for this information was an Iraqi defector codenamed Curveball who was a source for the German central intelligence agency BND.

Several German intelligence officials responsible for Curveball have now told the LA Times that the Bush administration and the CIA have repeatedly exaggerated his claims and ignored warnings of the BND that the source was unreliable. Recounting his reaction after seeing Powell’s United Nations speech one German intelligence officer said: “We were shocked. Mein Gott! We had always told them it was not proven…. It was not hard intelligence.” This corroborates reporting by the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit from 2003 and 2004 based on statements of unnamed senior German intelligence officials.

Nine months earlier, in May 2002, a fabricator warning was posted in Curveball’s file in U.S. intelligence databases. Powell was never warned that his United Nations speech contained material that both the DIA and CIA had determined was false, even though several people present at Powell’s CIA meetings were fully aware of this.

At this time German intelligence officers would not let the CIA meet directly with Curveball, but allowed a CIA doctor to draw blood samples. Questioning the validity of Curveball’s information in front of his CIA supervisor, the doctor was advised to “Keep in mind that this war is going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn’t say and the Powers That Be probably aren’t terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he’s talking about.”

Shortly after Powell’s UN speech and several days before the invasion, United Nations weapons inspectors attempted to directly verify several key claims made by Curveball, but concluded that they were unsustainable. The White House insisted on its WMD claims based on Curveball’s information.

Even after the invasion, when more and more of Curveball’s accounts were shown to be pure fabrication, the CIA and the Bush administration relied on Curveball’s information. When U.S. forces discovered trucks with lab equipment and Curveball claimed that these were identical to the ones he has been reporting about, the CIA rushed to publish a White Paper claiming that these trucks were part of Saddam Hussein’s secret biological weapons program and Bush claimed publicly that “We found the weapons of mass destruction.” Several days later, twelve of the thirteen WMD experts who analyzed the trucks agreed that the equipment was not suited for biological weapons production, with the only dissenting voice coming from the author of the original White Paper.

The White Paper remains posted on the CIA website to this date, and President Bush has not yet retracted his statement that Iraq produced “germ warfare agents” made in his State of the Union address or his postwar assertions that “we found the weapons of mass destruction.”