By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor
Britain is experiencing the same decline as Rome in 100BC, with the collapse of civilisation inevitable, a scientist has warned.
Read more » The Telegraph
Monthly Archives: April 2015
Pakistan sends relief goods for quake victims in Nepal
BY DAWN.COM | IRFAN HAIDER
KATHMANDU: Four Pakistan Air Force (PAF) aircraft carrying rescue and relief assistance, including a 30-bed mobile hospital, for Nepal left for the earthquake-devastated country Nepal on Sunday.
Two C-130 aircrafts have landed at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu and two more are expected to reach Kathmandu on April 27.
In line with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s directive, the two C-130s which reached Kathmandu today are carrying a medical team of doctors and paramedics, a 30-bed hospital, medicines, tents, water, dry food, and a search and rescue team with equipment
The relief team and equipment have been put together with the collaboration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan Army, PAF, National Disaster Management Authority of Pakistan, the embassy of Pakistan in Kathmandu, the embassy of Nepal in Islamabad, and the Nepalese authorities.
The Pakistani ambassador and other embassy officials were present at the airport to facilitate and extend logistical support to Pakistan relief assistance team.
Courtesy: DAWN
Read more » http://www.dawn.com/news/1178334/pakistan-sends-relief-goods-for-quake-victims-in-nepal
I am a cook in the US Senate but I still need food stamps to feed my children
I work 70 hours a week doing two jobs but cannot make ends meet. Presidential hopefuls must make profitable federal contractors pay living wages
Every day, I serve food to some of the most powerful people on earth, including many of the senators who are running for president: I’m a cook for the federal contractor that runs the US Senate cafeteria. But today, they’ll have to get their meals from someone else’s hands, because I’m on strike.
I am walking off my job because I want the presidential hopefuls to know that I live in poverty. Many senators canvas the country giving speeches about creating “opportunity” for workers and helping our kids achieve the “American dream” – most don’t seem to notice or care that workers in their own building are struggling to survive.
I’m a single father and I only make $12 an hour; I had to take a second job at a grocery store to make ends meet. But even though I work seven days a week – putting in 70 hours between my two jobs – I can’t manage to pay the rent, buy school supplies for my kids or even put food on the table. I hate to admit it, but I have to use food stamps so that my kids don’t go to bed hungry.
Courtesy: The Guardian
The award-winning bridge connecting Iranians
Project dubbed as ‘the third symbol of Tehran’ earns international recognition for architect Leila Araghian.
As an architecture student, Leila Araghian, 31, recalls roaming the sycamore-lined boulevards of her hometown, Tehran, looking for the next adventure. Once, she and a friend were passing by a bridge along Zafar Street, when they spotted a brown leather sofa outside a building.
So they got an idea, and dragged the sofa onto a small bridge, one of many that dot the creeks running through Tehran. As they sat there watching the water flow beneath them, they thought how much better it would be, if people could actually hang out on bridges, rather than just cross over them.
That friend, Alireza Behzadi, would become Araghian’s collaborator in her most important project so far, the Pol-e-Tabiat, or Nature Bridge, which opened in late 2014, and is now being called “the third symbol of Tehran“. The pedestrian bridge has won three awards in Iran.
And on Tuesday, it picked its first international recognition, winning a 2015 A Popular Choice prize in highways and bridges category, from a New York-based architectural organisation, Architizer. A panel of international jurors also nominated it as one of the top five finalists in architecture and engineering category.
Araghian recalled that late afternoon stroll with Behzadi many years ago, as she explained the inspiration behind her project, which she designed when she was only 26.
“Usually, bridges are designed in a straight line. And that straight line will produce a one point perspective that will tell you to just go. But we want to keep people on the bridge,” she told Al Jazeera.
“The bridge is not just a structure to connect from one point to another, but also a place to stay and enjoy.”
Soaring 270m across Modarres Highway, Pol-e-Tabiat, which connects two parks in the northern district of Iran’s capital, reflects her aspirations about Iranian architecture, Araghian said.
Mohammad Mohammadzadeh, an architect, author and critic, told Al Jazeera that projects like Araghian’s “reveal a huge capacity in the emerging generation of architects, who have been willing to form a progressive trend in Iran”.
Read more » Aljazeera
See more » http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/04/award-winning-bridge-connecting-iranians-150414121934153.html
British superbug outbreak ‘could kill 80,000’
Exclusive: A Government report warns that tens of thousands could die because of new strains of bacteria and viruses resistant to drugs
Up to 80,000 people in Britain could die in a single outbreak of an infection due to a new generation of superbugs, according to an official Government forecast.
In total, some 200,000 people could be infected if a strain of disease resistant to antibiotics took hold, according to official forecasts which reveal the potential casualty toll for the first time.
Within 20 years, outbreaks of common flu could become “serious” for patients as drugs become useless and routine surgery could be curtailed due to the risk of infection, it is warned.
Scientists are increasingly concerned about the impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which makes routine antibiotics or antivirals drugs ineffective against diseases that have formerly been brought under control.
It would mean that the huge gains made since the discovery of penicillin in curbing conditions such as pneumonia and tuberculosis and rendering surgery and childbirth safe could be lost.
David Cameron has warned that such a scenario would see the world “cast back into the dark ages of medicine”.
The new figures are given in the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies, a document compiled by the Cabinet Office that assesses the challenges posed by terrorism, disease, natural disasters and industrial strife.
For the first time, it contains an assessment of the dangers posed by AMR, which it describes as a “particularly serious” issue for the UK.
The document says: “Without effective antibiotics, even minor surgery and routine operations could become high-risk procedures, leading to increased duration of illness and ultimately premature mortality. Much of modern medicine, for example organ transplantation, bowel surgery and some cancer treatments may become unsafe due to the risk of infection. In addition, influenza pandemics would become more serious without effective treatments.”
It adds: “The number of infections complicated by AMR are expected to increase markedly over the next 20 years. If a widespread outbreak were to occur, we could expect around 200,000 people to be affected by a bacterial blood infection that could not be treated effectively with existing drugs, and around 80,000 of these might die.
“High numbers of deaths could also be expected from other forms of antimicrobial resistant infection.”
Already, there are no longer any effective drugs against one strain of E.coli, a bacterial infection that can prove lethal.
Analysts have also looked at the potential casualties from an increasing drug resistance in Klebsiella pneumonia, a form of bacterial pneumonia, and Staphylococcus aureus, a skin infection, as well as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.
Read more » The Telegraph
See more » http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11517558/British-superbug-outbreak-could-kill-80000.html
Greece looks to China and Russia for help but cannot get around its euro zone partners
Running out of room
ALEXIS TSIPRAS, the Greek prime minister, and his radical Syriza party are beginning to feel the heat. Two months of bluster by Greece’s first left-wing government have failed to produce the results it wanted. Those include an injection of fresh cash from the country’s current €172 billion ($185 billion) bail-out programme, and a new deal with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that would allow Athens, not its creditors, to decide on future economic reforms.
Greece’s eurozone partners are still waiting for Athens to come up with details, promised two weeks ago, on the country’s deteriorating public finances. Mr Tsipras has promised Greek voters that Syriza has banned the hated “troika” of bail-out monitors (from the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank) from Athens. To protect that political narrative, a team of mid-level officials from the three institutions sits ensconced in a four-star Athens hotel, gathering information by exchanging e-mails with their finance ministry counterparts. The ministry itself is strictly off-limits. “This system works quite well,” claims Dimitris Mardas, the budget minister. The visitors disagree, complaining about delays and inaccurate replies that could be avoided if they were allowed to meet Greek colleagues face-to-face.
Pakistani Actress Mawra to be star soon in Bollywood film
News courtesy: SAMAA TV
The Persian Paradox: Iran Is Much More Modern Than You Think
People in the West tend to have a monolithic view of Iran. But there’s a lot more to the country than the mullah-led theocracy, and it often gets ignored. And national pride is alive and well.
Read more » Spiegel International
See more » http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/caught-between-history-and-modernity-the-persian-paradox-a-1027050.html
Pakistan – ‘I fear for my life’: Man ‘detained’ by wife set free by court
By IMRAN GABOL
LAHORE: A sessions court on Saturday got a man kept in illegal detention by his wife recovered and set him at liberty, allowing him to go with his brother.
The detainee, Syed Ali Raza, told Additional District and Sessions Judge Naveed Iqbal that his captor Mahwish alias Mahi “is my wife”.
“I do not want to live with her anymore. She kept me locked in a room of the house where she herself or her servants would often give me a sound thrashing. She neither allows any member of my family to see me nor permits me to make a call to them. I fear for my life,” Raza submitted before the judge.
Syed Wasim Abbas had, in a habeas corpus petition, alleged that his younger brother was illegally detained by his employer, Mahi, who was not allowing Raza to leave his ‘workplace’ and subjecting him to torture while threatening him with dire consequences.
When a court bailiff raided Mahi’s house to recover the detainee, the woman present there revealed that she was his (Ali Raza’s) wife and not the employer.
In a statement recorded before the bailiff, Mahi said she and Raza contracted marriage seven months ago. The woman also revealed that she was four-month pregnant and wanted to live with her husband.
However, Raza begged the bailiff to take him to the court as he faced life threat from his wife who “often takes me to the police station where officials thrash me at her behest”.
Before the court, Raza admitted to have married Mahi but requested that he be ‘set at liberty’ and allowed to go with his petitioner-brother.
The judge, Naveed Iqbal, allowed Raza to go with his family and disposed of the petition.
The judge observed that the man could file a separate case if he wanted action against his wife.
Courtesy: Dawn, April 5th, 2015
See more » http://www.dawn.com/news/1174046/
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