State to ‘spy’ on you
Telegraph: Every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by private citizens is to be stored for a year and will be available for monitoring by government bodies.
All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.
Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.
They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.
Ministers had originally wanted to store the information on a single government-run database, but chose not to because of privacy concerns.
However the Government announced yesterday it was pressing ahead with privately held “Big Brother” databases that opposition leaders said amounted to “state-spying” and a form of “covert surveillance” on the public.
It is doing so despite its own consultation showing that it has little public support.
The Home Office admitted that only one third of respondents to its six-month consultation on the issue supported its proposals, with 50 per cent fearing that the scheme lacked sufficient safeguards to protect the highly personal data from abuse.
Read more telegraph.co.uk
Doctors know why Ukrainians are dying!
Mig News: All victims of the virus in Bukovyna (22 people at the age of 20-40) died not from bilateral pneumonia, as was previously thought, but as a result of viral distress syndrome, i.e the total destruction of the lungs.
At first the cardio-pulmonary insufficiency comes, and consequently cardiogenic shock is developed, which causes cardiac standstill and death, told the chief of bureau of the Chernivtsi regional forensic examination, doctor of science, Professor Viktor Bachynsky, UNIAN reports.
“During a bilateral pneumonia some morphological picture is observed. As of data of deaths, there is no such morphological picture. The virus, which causes death, is very aggressive, it does not strike the trachea, but immediately gets into the lungs and causes heavy swelling and solid hemorrhage. Mixed types of parainfluenza and influenza A/N1N1 lead to this state. This is a very toxic strain, which has not yet answered to the treatment of the Ministry of Health”, – said Viktor Bachinsky.
According to him, there is a need to change the treatment standards, because those which were used earlier, resulted in nothing – doctors failed to save all people infected with the virus in the reanimation. The belt ventilators did not help also.
For this reason a group of professors of Chernivtsi Medical University appealed to the Ministry of Health and National Security and Defense Council with a demand to review the standards of treatment of patients in Bukovyna. Scientists-morphologists sent to Kyiv reports, studies and analysis of critically ill patients and people who died of virus.
Viktor Bachinsky noted that the virus is extremely toxic, it is able to penetrate not only through respiratory apparatus but also through the eyes. Chernovtsy scientists recommend in any case use masks and even wear protective spectacles. An important condition to prevent deterioration of the situation is also the observance of quarantine regime.
Read more mignewns.com.ua
Besides swine influenza, AN3N2, AN2N2 and group B have been found in the territory of Ukraine. In particular, at present at least 8 different viruses are circulating in the territory of Bukovyna. Such conclusions are made by experts of regional sanitary epidemiological stations following the results of almost 6,000 studies on the identification of acute respiratory viral infections, said the chief state sanitary doctor of the Chernivtsi Region Oleksandr Svitlichny on November 11 at the briefing.
According to him, all the acute respiratory viral infections, which are currently circulating in the territory of Bukovina, are treated. However, due to the fact that they collided, clinical disease and the tactics of his treatment change. Therefore, a doctor needs to know exactly which virus is detected in the patient.
Among the viruses that are registered in Bukovina, Oleksander Svitlychny told about AH3N2, AH2N2, AH1N1, a large group of influenza B, parainfluenza viruses of three types, reports proUA.com.
Read more mignews.com.ua
The Untold Story of White Slavery
Whites have forgotten what blacks take pains to remember.
Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 246 pp., $35.00.
Book review by Thomas Jackson
As Robert C. Davis notes in this eye-opening account of Barbary Coast slavery, American historians have studied every aspect of enslavement of Africans by whites but have largely ignored enslavement of whites by North Africans. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters is a carefully researched, clearly written account of what Prof. Davis calls “the other slavery,” which flourished during approximately the same period as the trans-Atlantic trade, and which devastated hundreds of European coastal communities. Slavery plays nothing like the central role in the thinking of today’s whites that it does for blacks, but not because it was fleeting or trivial matter. The record of Mediterranean slavery is, indeed, as black as the most tendentious portrayals of American slavery. Prof. Davis, who teaches Italian social history at Ohio State University, casts a piercing light into this fascinating but neglected corner of history.
The trans-Atlantic trade in blacks was strictly commercial, but for Arabs, memories of the Crusades and fury over expulsion from Spain in 1492 seem to have fueled an almost jihad-like Christian-stealing campaign. “It may have been this spur of vengeance, as opposed to the bland workings of the marketplace, that made the Islamic slavers so much more aggressive and initially (one might say) successful in their work than their Christian counterparts,” writes Prof. Davis. During the 16th and 17th centuries more slaves were taken south across the Mediterranean than west across the Atlantic. Some were ransomed back to their families, some were put to hard labor in north Africa, and the unluckiest worked themselves to death as galley slaves.
What is most striking about Barbary slaving raids is their scale and reach. Pirates took most of their slaves from ships, but they also organized huge, amphibious assaults that practically depopulated parts of the Italian coast. Italy was the most popular target, partly because Sicily is only 125 miles from Tunis, but also because it did not have strong central rulers who could resist invasion.
Large raiding parties might be essentially unopposed. When pirates sacked Vieste in southern Italy in 1554, for example, they took an astonishing 6,000 captives. Algerians took 7,000 slaves in the Bay of Naples in 1544, in a raid that drove the price of slaves so low it was said you could “swap a Christian for an onion.” Spain, too, suffered large-scale attacks. After a raid on Granada in 1566 netted 4,000 men, women, and children, it was said to be “raining Christians in Algiers.” For every large-scale raid of this kind there would have been dozens of smaller ones.
The appearance of a large fleet could send the entire population inland, emptying coastal areas. In 1566, a party of 6,000 Turks and Corsairs sailed up the Adriatic and landed at Fracaville. The authorities could do nothing, and urged complete evacuation, leaving the Turks in control of over 500 square miles of abandoned villages all the way to Serracapriola.
When pirates appeared, people often fled the coast to the nearest town, but Prof. Davis explains why this was not always good strategy: Continue reading
The France’s largest mosque
M&C: aris – The construction of France’s
largest mosque, with room for some 7,000 visitors, was officially launched Friday when Marseille Mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin handed over the construction permit.
The mosque will cost 22 million euros (32.6 million dollars) to build and is to comprise a prayer hall measuring 2,500 square metres and a 25-metre high minaret.
Plans for the project also call for the construction of a library, an amphitheatre and a restaurant. The foundation stone is to be laid in April, with the mosque scheduled to open in 2011.
Read more monstersandcritics.com
“Europeans too selfish to have children”
The Telegraph: Europe is “dying’’ because its secular residents are too selfish to have children, according to Lord Sacks, the Chief Rabbi.
The leader of Britain’s Jewish community claimed the continent’s population is in decline because people care more about shopping than the sacrifice involved in parenthood.
He blamed atheist “neo-Darwinians” for Europe’s low birth rate and said religious people of all denominations are more likely to have large families.
The Chief Rabbi, who entered the House of Lords last week, made his comments in a lecture on religion in the 21st century hosted by Theos, the public theology think-tank, on Wednesday night. Lord Sacks said that faith had survived so far because it could provide answers to mankind’s eternal search for meaning in life – unlike the market, the state, science or philosophy, which underpin modern liberal democracies.
He claimed religion could continue to play an important role worldwide in the future, by engaging in debate with scientists, by campaigning on issues such as global poverty or the environment, and by discussing the nature of the common good with humanists.
The Chief Rabbi warned that secular Europe is at risk, however, because its moral relativism can easily be defeated by fundamentalists.
And he claimed that its population is also in decline, compared with every other part of the world, because non-believers lack shared values of family and community that religions have.
Lord Sacks said: “Parenthood involves massive sacrifice of money, attention, time and emotional energy.
“Where today in European culture with its consumerism and instant gratification – because you’re worth it – where will you find space for the concept of sacrifice for the sake of generations not yet born?
“Europe, at least the indigenous population of Europe, is dying.”
“That is one of the unsayable truths of our time. We are undergoing the moral equivalent of climate change and no one is talking about it.
“Albert Camus once said, ‘The only serious philosophical question is why should I not commit suicide?’.
“I think he was wrong. The only serious philosophical question is, why should I have a child? Our culture is not giving an easy answer to that question.”
He added: “Wherever you turn today – Jewish, Christian or Muslim – the more religious the community, the larger on average are their families.
“The major assault on religion today comes from the neo-Darwinians.’’
Discussing the popular secular idea that there are no absolute moral values, he said: “You cannot defend a civilisation on the basis of moral relativism.
Read more telegraph.co.uk
En unknown disease kills in Ukraine, swine flu is the official explanation
Kavkazcenter: Ukrainian News Agency “Fraza” reported that, according to informed sources, “it has been confirmed 100 % Pneumonic Plague in Ukraine“.
The Agency asserts that “the head physician of the medical institutions has sent out an informal disposal – not to sow panic, to refute the information about the plague, and to speak only of swine influenza“.
It is also required to distribute masks at health facilities with 8 levels of protection and anti-plague protection costumes. There is also an informal order not to allow any visitors to see the patients.
According to the “Fraza” agency, “today in Ukraine pneumonic plague is going in parallel with swine flu. The plague has killed over 60 people, and about 14 from the flu”.
Meanwhile, the press service of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine reported that there is only one death from “California” virus A/N1N1 in Ukraine.
“In Ukraine there are 22 cases recorded of the virus A/N1N1 disease and there is only one fatal consequence as a result. All other cases of death from influenza has only a speculative attitude to “California” virus,” press service reports.
The situation with the epidemic of influenza is a complex and unpredictable because of the propensity of influenza A/H1N1 virus to mutation, said First Deputy Minister of Health Mr. Lazoryshynets on Monday, November 2.
“The situation is complicated and unpredictable. We found a strain of this virus in our laboratory … This virus is dangerous because it can mutate, and we can get a very different kind of virus, which was in Latin America or in Mexico, now it is European “, – said Lazoryshynets at a press conference, the “Correspondent” magazine informs.
Read more kavkazcenter.com
“We have sent the analyses to Kyiv. We don’t believe it’s the swine flue. Neither do we know what kind of pneumonia it is,
Borysevych stressed. Viral tests can last from one to two weeks. They are complicated and not done in Lviv. The course of the disease was very quick. The symptoms included very high temperature and short-wind cough.
The disease started as an ordinary chill with headache and temperature. The symptoms lasted for a week before patient condition began to aggravate. ”
“Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast
All the six dead young people had symptoms of severe hemmorhagic pneumonia. The disease starts slowly, with temperature rising to 37.2 – 37.3 degrees, slight cough and pain in joints. Nasal catarrh developed at the end of the second or third day. Autopsy revealed that the lungs were soaked with blood, the oblast chief specialist said. ”
More information zik.com.ua
Yushchenko called on to help Ukraine: Unknown virus is killing people
Virus H1N1 not to blame for fatal cases in western Ukraine
The tall of the sick rose with over 100% between the 4th of November 2009 and the 8th of November 2009