Russia Sustaining Troop Losses

Russian President Vladimir Putin sits in a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Sochi, Russia. The image, via Russian state media, is dated May 23, 2022.

Sputnik/Ramil Sitdikov/Kremlin via Reuters

"In the first three months of its 'special military operation', Russia has likely suffered a similar death toll to that experienced by the Soviet Union during its nine-year war in Afghanistan."

"[From 1979 to 1989 the Soviet Union lost 15,000 servicemen, thousands more wounded; Ukraine's military estimates Russian personnel losses of 29,200 since February24]."

British Ministry of Defence

"There were attempts to kill Putin."

"There was an assassination attempt recently by, as they call it, representatives of the Caucasus. This was not in the public domain."

"A completely failed attempt, but it really did happen about two months ago."

Major Gen. Kyryulo Budanov, Kyiv military intelligence official

Smoke rises in the city of Sievierodonetsk during heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region, May 30, 2022, on the 96th day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine

 

History most certainly would have recorded a vastly altered turn of events had a purported attempt at assassination of Russia's long-serving strongman succeeded, shortly after ordering the invasion of Ukraine. An attempt that Ukraine's top intelligence official noted was foiled by Russian authorities. No details were forthcoming and whether this was in reference to Russia's North Caucasus or the South Caucasus remained a mystery.

The claim, however, was cast into doubt by Western officials. COVID isolaton protocols have remained in place so the potential for immediate access to the Russian president would be beyond difficult, for any reason. "[Were] anyone to attempt to do something like that it would be a hugely complex operation", a Russian official speaking anonymously, stated.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that close to a hundred soldiers could die every day in the battle over Ukraine's industrial heartland in southern Ukraine where on the battlefields, Moscow's forces continue to sustain heavy losses, even as British intelligence claims that Russia lost as many men in the first three months of the Ukraine campaign as did the Soviet Union in its quagmire of a campaign, spending nine years in Afghanistan.

In the current campaign, the 'special military operation' that Vladimir Putin states is meant to cleanse Ukraine of the 'Nazi' element governing the country, Moscow is focused on encircling Ukrainian forces to succeed in its intention to fully occupy the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces making up the Donbas where separatist ethnic Russian forces aligned with Moscow claim the province as a separate enclave, completely autonomous.

Moscow, in a claim of delicious irony, accuses Ukrainian nationals of carrying out "terror attacks" on pro-Russian officials in occupied regions of southern Ukraine.Ukraine's worst military loss from a single attack of the war took place with 87 people killed as Russian forces struck a military barracks housing troops at a training base in the north in a May 27 strike in the town of Desna.

Russian troops now aspire to capture Sievierodonetsk which lies in the easternmost part of a pocket held by Ukraine in the Donbas, one of the last areas of Luhansk still eluding Russia's grasp. Russia, said Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidal, was "wiping Sevierodonetsk from the face of the earth", attempting to advance from three directions to overrun the city, and cut off a highway south of Sievierodonetsk -- with a prewar population of some 100,000 -- may become another Mariupol.

A photograph shows an explosion in the city of Sievierodonetsk during heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region, May 30, 2022.

To Salt Or Not To Salt: That Is The Question

"We thought, 'That's peculiar'. Then we sat on that data for two years. We did everything we could to make it go away and we couldn't make it go away no matter how you analyze the data."

"The bottom line is, if low sodium is not helpful and may even increase the risk, it's better to focus on the overall quality of the diet."

"Reduce processed foods and focus on eating more fruits and vegetables and more potassium-containing foods -- an all-around wellness diet."

Professor Andrew Mente, epidemiology professor, McMaster University, Hamilton

Crystals of table, kosher, and pickling salt   (AP / Nati Harnik)

 

In reflection of conventional wisdom respecting the place of salt in a diet therapy meant for people with high blood pressure, the World Health Organization recommends consumption of less than two grams of sodium (five grams of salt) daily. The Mayo Clinic and Health Canada along with other health bodies suggest no more than 2.3 grams (about a teaspoon of salt) daily. In Canada, a report issued in 2017 by Health Canada assessed the average intake per person of salt in the country to be 2.8 grams.

Studies like the Harvard University-led TOHP trial in the United States in late 1980s and early 1990s underpin such recommendations from within the international health community. In that study some 4,500 people were divided into groups receiving either general healthy lifestyle advice or alternately weekly group and individual counselling in reducing sodium intake. Leading to the conclusion that those who received salt-reduction assistance were 25 percent less likely to suffer strokes, heart attacks and other cardiovascular events in years to follow.

Other controlled studies reached like conclusions; that as people absorb less sodium, a reduction in hypertension resulted, according to a recent paper. And then in 2009 Dr.Salim Yusuf of the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences published research and commentaries that suggested heart health did not improve with sharp salt reduction intake. To state that consternation, condemnation and confusion and controversy resulted is to understate the impact of this reversal of popular medical wisdom.

Dr.Yusuf and his team of researchers made the decision to study the issue relating to two studies they ran focused on testing blood pressure drugs. A sidebar sodium study enrolled about 28,000 people from 40 countries. The participants, all at risk of cardiovascular disease, had their intake of sodium measured through interpreting secretions of the mineral in urine samples. What this study revealed shocked the scientists when they found that as sodium levels fell the rate of heart-and-stroke-related illness did initially fall, then rose again, with sodium intake amounts lower than three grams daily.

 

High blood pressure leads to heart attacks, strokes and death. Hypertension is considered the world's leading cause of mortality, and sodium considered the culprit in up to 30 percent of cases. The greater the sodium intake, the greater the retention of water in the body, to wash it away. This increases the pressure of blood being pushed through arteries and veins. Not only did cutting sodium below a certain point not lead to improved cardiovascular health, lower levels it turned out, might in fact increase risk of disease.

After the results were published in some of the world's foremost medical journals, and the McMaster University research team led by Dr.Yusuf, a highly respected researcher, were castigated for their unacceptable findings, they followed up with a parallel study of 102,000 subjects from 17 countries in another McMaster-led international research project called PURE. Published in the high profile New England Journal of Medicine, the results for the second study were similar to the earlier ones.

Their conclusion led them to argue the earlier evidence, like the TOHP trials, did not indicate that the standard sodium diet-reduction to the recommended level had any effect on improving health outcomes. Their critics focused on what they found to be a flaw in the methodology of the study where the gold-standard method is to collect all urine someone produces in a 24-hour period to test for secreted sodium and repeat it on non-consecutive days, whereas the McMaster-led trial performed a single fasting (spot sample) of urine early morning.

"It's tough and it's tedious so people try to cut a lot of corners (24-hour sampling). With a single-spot sample] stuies are much easier to do, much less complex -- and give you the wrong answers", pointed out Dr.Norman Campbell of University of Calgary. "They're making inaccurate and false statements and misleading statements and misinterpretations and they're not correcting things that are obviously flawed. this is a global aggravation for people who are trying to improve the health of their populations."

 

Dr.Mente, on the other hand, speaks of the advice to maintain sodium intake no higher than four or five grams daily, and not to be concerned about cutting it much below three grams. He also pointed out that their sodium studies were subjected to intense peer review pre-publication, where prominent journals assign vetting to half a dozen scientist-reviewers and two statisticians to vouch for accuracy. 

 

Dr.Yusuf comments that the science is in flux and the research he and his team conducted has aided in altering the sodium-hypertension paradigm; that their critics are unwilling to consider that health and research understandings have undergone an alteration. He and his colleagues' study results have come under scrutiny with charges of bias resulting from study funders such as health charities and drug companies.

"[Campbell's] enthusiasm for this as a crusader, you have to admire it."

"But at the same time, all scientific debate has to be based on respect, it has to be based on openness."

"It has to be based on entertaining different viewpoints."

Dr.Martin O'Donnell, professor of medicine, National University of Ireland, Galway, McMaster group collaborator

Relying on the conventional scientific wisdom, the World Health Organization recommends consuming less than two grams of sodium — five grams of salt — a day. Health Canada, the Mayo Clinic and other health bodies suggest no more each day than 2.3 grams, about a teaspoon of salt. Photo by Getty

 

"A new controversial study claims that in most cases, consuming salt will not increase health risks. The study published on August 9 in The Lancet, a scientific journal, followed 94 000 people between the ages of 35 and 70 across 18 countries to determine whether salt intake truly does increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke (1), an accepted belief. Monitoring subjects over an average span of eight years,  interestingly, it was found that the risk only increases if the average sodium intake is greater than 5 g per day ― the equivalents of 2.5 teaspoons of salt."

"The research was led by Prof Salim Yusuf of the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences in collaboration with colleagues from 21 different countries, including Canada, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, China, Columbia, India, Iran, Malaysia, occupied Palestinian territory, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Zimbabwe."

"Salt-reduction enthusiasts argue that campaigns in the UK, Japan, and elsewhere over the past several years have led to a reduction in salt intake and consequently, a reduction in overall average blood pressure of the population. However, our bodies require essential nutrients like sodium to function, therefore, completely removing salt from our diets may be just as damaging as too much. But the question remains, how much is too much?"

European Scientist

Whatever Could Go Wrong, Did

"Of course it was not the right decision, it was the wrong decision, period. With the benefit of hindsight, of course, it was not the right decision."

"[The incident commander on-site Tuesday, who was a member of the school district's own police force, had determined that by the time three Uvalde police officers entered the school at 11:35 a.m., the situation was no longer an active shooting but a barricaded shooter scenario and] no more children were at risk."

"Obviously, based upon the information we have, there were children in that classroom that were at risk, and it was, in fact, still an active shooter situation."

Col. Steven McCraw, director, Texas Department of Public Safety

Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, arrives at a news conference in front of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Friday. McCraw admitted that police made the wrong decision in not confronting the gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at the school sooner. ( Omar Ornelas/USA Today Network/Reuters)

A worse scenario cannot be imagined, that while children were desperately trying to hide from an armed marauder out to murder as many vulnerable young children as he could for a reason only a twisted mind could comprehend, police waited an interminable length of time even while trapped children were trustingly calling 911 begging to be rescued from their nightmare. For an hour they huddled together in terror that the man with the semi-automatic rifle would notice them, sending out messages that were futile, while police officers waited, against all operational instructions in coping with situations like this.

Now the crisis is over, there will be 19 funerals for children aged 9 and 10 who the killer did see when he barricaded himself along with his victims in a grade four classroom at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and another two funerals where the city will grieve for the deaths of two of the teachers whose job it was to teach those children. No fewer than 19 officers waited in a hallway, while an hour elapsed and the rampage continued.

Contrary to initial reports following the deadly attack in the elementary school, no armed school officer was in attendance that day and there was no one to challenge the intention of a black-clad man wielding a semi-automatic weapon from entering the school. Entry, in fact, took place, against all entrenched security protocols of the school board, through an unlocked door at the school, a door furthermore, that had been propped open by someone at the school.

When police did arrive at the school in response to emergency calls when Salvador Ramos, 18 had gained entrance, they retreated immediately they came under fire. On the arrival of specially emergency- equipped federal agents they were refused entrance to the school, by local police. 

During which time two children in hiding, hoping not to be noticed by the gunman, called 911 repeatedly with one of the children informing police of their situation, whispering that there were others dead and "eight to nine" students still alive. How utterly horrifying this must have been for those children; young as they were to be in that deadly situation, knowing their lives hung in the balance of luck, the evidence all around them that luck failed some of their classmates.

Police officers help children run to safety after escaping from a window at the school. (Pete Luna/Uvalde Leader-News/Reuters)

After the passage of an impossibly-endless hour when time must have seemed to stand still, a tactical unit led by border agents entered a classroom where the gunman was killed. Videos shot minutes following the shooter entering the building show police holding back frantic parents, and handcuffing some. Over 100 rounds were fired by Ramos by the time seven police officers entered the school at about 11:40 a.m. 

The 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado led to guidelines widely implemented directing officers to pursue shooters without waiting for special backup. "The first two to five responding officers should form a single team and enter the structure", orders the Texas Police Chiefs Association's own policy manual. One schoolchild spoke of Ramos having "backed the teacher into the classroom --- looked her right in the eye, and said 'Goodnight', and then shot her and killed her".

Some children had great presence of mind to try to save themselves as did 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo who rubbed a classmate's blood over herself in pretense of death, in case the gunman returned to her classroom. Parents at the rear of the school building are seen in a video complaining that police were doing nothing. Angeli Rose-Gomez, whose children were in the school, was handcuffed by federal marshals when she and others pushed police to intervene.

African Zoonotic Mysterious Global Spread

"We are not facing a new disease that is akin to the coronavirus."

"We are not in a situation where very strong and widespread contagion will happen very quickly, but it remains serious and we have to contain it as quickly as possible."

"[We do not think it necessary to single out locations over fears of] stigmatization, [there are now measures in place]."

"The enemy is the virus, not the people affected."

Dr.Luc Boileau, interim public health director, Quebec

"Data have shown that if you give it [smallpox vaccine] within four days, you have a very good effectiveness in preventing the illness."

"If you administer it between Day 5 and 14, it might not prevent disease, but it might modify the evolution."

Dr.Caroline Quach, chair, immunization committee, Quebec

Electron microscope image   AP

 

Quebec is set to act in light of its thus-far having identified 25 cases of monkeypox virus in the Montreal area. The province has been provided with smallpox vaccine doses, Imvamune, from the federal government. Its decision is to meet the new challenge of yet another exotic virus by taking swift action on contagion prevention, planning to administer the vaccine to people beginning today, Friday. In addition to the 25 confirmed cases, another thirty suspected cases are under investigation.

The outbreak is considered to be serious, but the disease is considerably less transmissible than COVID-19 and the province hopes to eradicate the monkeypox virus in the province by an expeditious response to its presence. Officials plan to see that doses of Imvamune are administered to people who have experienced close contact with those infected, or who live with people who have assumed cases of the disease. Those who have active cases of monkeypox, on the other hand, will not be inoculated with the vaccine, since by then it would be too late to have an effect.

The vaccine Imvamune was approved in 2020 for the prevention of smallpox, along with other viruses that fall into the orthopox category and has been demonstrably effective in preventing monkeypox in animal studies. Ideally it should be given within four days of exposure, but it could still be administered up to two weeks following any exposure. According to Dr. Boileau, most monkeypox cases in the province have befallen adult men who had close sexual contact with other men who have the disease. One case was identified in a person under 18 years of age.

The symptoms primarily consist of skin lesions on the mouth and genitals. Fever and headaches as well as joint and muscle pain can also be present. Dr. Boileau advised that people who have suspected cases, along with anyone living with them, should isolate themselves. They should wear masks, cover their lesions and take care not to share clothing, bedding or eating utensils with others to avoid transmissibility. 

Direct contact with lesions represents the primary method of spread, although the virus can be transmitted as well by respiratory droplets. The Public Health Agency of Canada revealed that all confirmed cases of monkeypox in the country were detected in Quebec, to the present. Toronto public health authorities are investigating four suspected cases of the disease, including one linked to Montreal.

According to social media, Sauna G.I. Joe had hosted a sex party on May19, the very day that Canada confirmed its first case of monkeypox.

The Genesis of a Zoonotic Enigma

"Scientists use a chimpanzee adenovirus as a vector -- a way to get instructions for making virus-fighting antigens into the body."

"It should be noted that chimpanzees are not monkeys."

Meedan Health Desk

"It is wholly different from monkeypox [the Astra Zeneca vaccine using a chimpanzee adenovirus vector] and there is no possibility whatsoever that the two are linked."

"The virus used in the AZ vaccine is an adenovirus that has been mutated to prevent it [from] growing in human cells."

"All the vector does is carry the vaccine component into human cells, it does not establish any sort of infection itself."

Ian Jones, professor of virology, University of Reading

"We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected, and it looks like sexual contact has now amplified that transmission."

Dr.David Heymann, former head, WHO emergencies department

"By nature, sexual activity involves intimate contact, which one would expect to increase the likelihood of transmission, whatever a person's sexual orientation and irrespective of the mode of transmission."

Mike Skinner, virologist, Imperial College London

Health experts say that although recent outbreaks of monkeypox are a cause for concern, they urge people not to panic, saying the virus is nothing like COVID-19.

The most recently reported virus causing consternation in the health communities where monkeypox has been laboratory-confirmed -- where to the present most such cases are generally confined to Africa where it is endemic -- has presented as a mystery where it has turned up in Europe and North America. The virus typically causes fever, chills, rash and face or genital lesions, also appearing on the hands of affected people. No one outside Africa has yet died as a result of contracting monkeypox which has tended to clear up in several weeks' time.

The hundred or so cases that have turned up in North America and Europe are being closely monitored, the possible source examined by public health authorities. But the public has not been idle itself in raising their versions of its origins through wild speculation of just how it was that a virus confined to two areas on one continent has suddenly begun appearing worldwide. There are the claims that a COVID virus making use of a mutated chimpanzee adenovirus is responsible.

That misinformation has been repeated by a number of individuals in positions of authority, like the British MP who on May20 posted on Twitter: "Who is surprised that after millions of people have been injected with genetically modified chimp virus, there is now an outbreak of monkeypox?" That single Twitter post has been retweeted two thousand times with over six thousand 'likes'. Word gets around, particularly controversially unsound words.

 

 

Chinese social media users are being directed toward speculation that the source of monkeypox infections is a deliberate move on the part of the United States. Taken in its malicious interpretation to have resulted from the skepticism voiced by the Trump administration when a new and deadly virus arose in Wuhan, China to go on at speed to infect the entire world. When interest zeroed in on the proximity of the Wuhan Institute of Virology which was thought to have inadvertently released the SARS-CoV-2 virus while experimentation was taking place in the biologically secure research facility.

Beijing saw an opportunity to turn the screws on the U.S. in smarting umbrage over criticism that was aimed at it over its critical lack of warning to the world at large when it began coping with a mysterious new virus. The popular Chinese social media site Weibo has preached to the convinced that the source was deliberately designed; "a plan by the U.S. to leak bioengineered monkeypox virus". At the time that the COVID pandemic was first sweeping the world, Beijing claimed the U.S. had engineered the virus at a military base.

The unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox outside its usual Africa preserve, led a leading adviser to the World Health Organization to describe the outbreak as "a random event" whose cause appeared to be sexual activities at two recent raves that took place in Spain and Belgium. In central and western Africa people typically become infected through contact with wild rodents and primates; a zoonotic infection where animal viruses leap the species barrier to infect humans.

It is now official that most of the known cases seen in Europe have been the result of men having sex with men even though theoretically anyone can be infected through close contact with an infected person. Whose clothing or bedsheets can spread the infection. In fact, scientists still remain uncertain over whether the virus is spread through sex or by close physical contact in general.

"The likelihood of further spread of the virus through close contact, for example during sexual activities among persons with multiple sexual partners, is considered to be high."

Andrea Ammon, control director, European Centre for Disease Prevention

 

The Deadly Inexplicable Again

"How many scores of little children who witnessed what happened - see their friends die, as if they're in a battlefield, for God's sake.They'll live with it the rest of their lives."

"I hoped when I became president I would not have to do this, again. [Their parents] will never see their child again, never have them jump in bed and cuddle with them."

"As a nation, we have to ask, 'When in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby'?"

"We have to act. [Reinstate the assault weapons ban and other] common sense gun laws."

U.S. President Joe Biden

 

"He was engaged by an Uvalde ISD police officer who works here at the school. And then after that, he was engaged by two other officers from the Uvalde Police Department."

"[While] engaged [with the school officer, the gunman dropped a black bag full of ammunition outside of the school. Inside that bag was actually more ammunition. He actually dropped that ammunition and ran inside the school where he barricaded himself inside one of the classrooms and, unfortunately, that is where he started conducting his business of shooting innocent children, shooting the two innocent adults that were inside that classroom."

 Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Sgt. Erick Estrada 

Photo Mass shooting at Texas elementary school; neighbours come together to comfort one another CNN

 

A local pastor, Marcela Cabralez, after a call from a colleague who operates a nearby funeral home pleading for her help with the children who were sheltering inside the funeral home, found the young students traumatized when she arrived. Some of those children were rocking themselves, holding one another, covering their ears, screaming. Some started blankly ahead of themselves. They told the pastor, one after another what they had witnessed: bullets flying through windows, glass breaking, their classmates bleeding.

Highly impressionable children. Who can sense when danger or a threat to their inborn sense of security arises, seek escape from the immediate source of the danger. What they cannot escape, however is what it was they saw and what they knew to be happening. That memory is firmly lodged deep in their memory bank, filed away for the rest of their lives, to surface on occasion and haunt them. A lived terror in the subterranean recesses of their minds, fearfully troubling, behind everything else in their future that they experience.

The secret inner rage of a high school boy just turned 18, who had gone on a shopping spree to buy for himself several high-powered rifles. To add to the  high-powered truck that was also in his possession. Texting with a teen-age girl in Germany who he had 'met' on line only a few weeks earlier, he described his anger and boredom,  hinting at the solution to his rage about to unfold. First he killed his grandmother because he was infuriated with her interfering in his affais.

 

And then he drove his truck to an all-Hispanic elementary school, where he barged in, had an exchange with a security guard, then barricaded a grade four classroom where he shot 19 children, all around age ten, to death. Two adults were to follow. Uvalde, Texas, has had an experience they would not wish on any other town in the United States, or elsewhere in the world. Just as the school year was about to conclude for the summer break, hell sent the Angel of Death to take charge in the guise of a psychopathic teen on a psychotic rampage.

Apart from the 21 who had been killed outright, others, some seriously wounded, were hospitalized. The young gunman appeared to deliberately drive his car into a ditch. Then he walked over to the school holding a rifle. He evaded police, to enter the school building where he walked from classroom to classroom, firing at children, spreading terror and the promise of death. 

18-year-old Salvador Ramos who lived in Uvalde had no criminal record. Initial evidence appears to indicate that the weapons were bought in the wake of his 18th birthday. The school video shared on social media showed someone dressed in black, running to a side door of the school, carrying a rifle. The owner of an auto repair shop and a co-worker had left the business, looking for lunch                      when they heard gunshots from the school.Then they saw women working at a nearby funeral home screaming,"He's shooting! He's shooting!"

The two men approached the armed teen intending to ask whether they could be of assistance, after seeing his vehicle in a ditch close to the school. The teen responded by shooting at them, before barricading himself in the school for the 45 minutes it would take to shoot at his little victims and kill them.

Law enforcement agents secure the scene of the shooting on Tuesday.

 

Cancer Radiation : Hit Or Miss

"When I started training, we basically laid someone down on the bed, put a plastic mask on them and took some X-rays from the front and the side."

"We would then blast away at them every day for six or seven weeks, treating the same area irrespective of the fact that during the treatment the patient would lose up to ten percent of their body weight."

"Their body would shrink, the shape of the area we were radiating would shrink and, as they subsided and lost weight, the position of their head would slightly change and we wouldn't adjust one iota to that, we just carried on the way we were."

"The new technique cuts out a very laborious, time-consuming step without any detriment to our ability to target the cancer, as we found it to be 99.9 percent as good as a fully bespoke [patient-individualized] program."

Kevin Harrington, head, radiotherapy and imaging, Institute of Cancer Research, U.K.

 

Medical science progresses rapidly, as in a newly revealed cancer tool with the potential to dramatically reduce the time that patients require in radiotherapy for head and neck tumours, developed by British researchers. A machine combining MRI imaging and X-rays for a swift and accurate view of the tumour's location is revolutionizing this type of specific cancer treatment by adjusting the aim of the treatment, with an accuracy of 99.9 percent.

Time spent administering radiotherapy can be reduced from two hours to 30 minutes, according to the team of researchers representing the Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, in London, England. Over 12,000 people are diagnosed with head or neck cancer annually in the United Kingdom, with treatment involving radiation to shrink a tumour while the patient lies motionless within a mask protecting healthy tissues.

In the most ideal of treatment situations, scans would be an every day occurrence in the creation of a bespoke program supervised by a doctor. Such an individually tailored and infinitely more accurate protocol however, is both time=consuming and labour-intensive. With the use of the MRI-Linac machine, the scientific team arrived at a middle ground between customizing the treatment, and the older, inflexible, prone-to-inaccuracy approach.

The method was used on two patients in a study published in the journal Clinical and Translational Radiation Oncology, and was found to be highly accurate. In over 50 doses of radiation delivered, one case only exceeded the acceptable threshold. The previous approach, in contrast, scored just 92.4 percent.

"The failure rate of the old approach was as high as seven percent which means that there was a significant risk of either missing the tumour target, and therefore reducing the chance of curing the disease, or overdosing the normal organs and increasing the risk of toxicity."

Kevin Harrington, Institute of Cancer Research

The Symbiosis of Two Great Wheat Growing Nations

"Kyiv is the birthplace of the Slavs, and arguably, Ukraine is the starting point. It's really only when the Russian Empire captures this region and takes it over that it becomes a kind of colony of Russia."

"A lot of history is written about generals and battles and famous men who produced a new kind of stirrup or something like that in the Middle Ages."

"And it's really, I think, the men and women who experimented with wheat, seeds and cross-pollination hundreds and hundreds of years ago that are responsible for our survival."

"And the stirrup is not nearly as important in the long run than all that food experimentation that was done, particularly along the Black Sea."

"For Putin [whose master's thesis was on strategic resources in Russia and Ukraine], it's all about resources and always has been. [Russia's] elemental desire [to dominate the Black Sea is important to understanding the conflict]."

"Russia's future has always depended on control of the Black Sea region. When it was the Russian Empire, it was the foreign exchange Russia got from Ukraine that made it possible for it to expand. And then even in the Soviet period, it was Ukrainian grain that was a big part of what held the Eastern Bloc together."

Scott Reynolds Nelson, historian, author: Oceans of Grain

"[The single spring wheat plant Fife received] was not some mutant produced in Canada. It belonged to a variety cultivated in the middle of Europe and was accidentally present as a single grain in this shipment of winter wheat."

"Only because of a strange and very unlikely accident did Ukrainian wheat, in the form of a single grain find its way to Canada -- and not to the address of some experimental farm or famous breeder, but to the field of an ordinary farmer."

The late research biologist Stephan Symko

"The introduction of Marquis wheat is one of the greatest practical triumphs that Canada has ever had, one that is perennially fruitful, not impoverishing but ever increasing the wealth of our country and making it a better land to live in."

"But this is not all, for Marquis extends its blessings far beyond the bounds of this country, not merely to the United States of America where it is also grown on a large scale, but to the Old World. Especially in Europe, to which it is borne by a great fleet of ships across the broad Atlantic, it adds to the quantity and improves the quality of the daily bread of millions of toilers who have never herd its name."

A.H. Reginald Buller: Essays on Wheat

In 1842, David Fife developed Red Fife Wheat, the dominant wheat grown in Western Canada for 60 years – 1860 to 1910. Red Fife is the male parent of Marquis Wheat which, in 1915, supplanted Red Fife as the dominant Canadian wheat.  nGenium

 

In Africa and the Middle East up to 50 million people risk facing famine within months, deprived by the Russian military assault on Ukraine, of wheat grain from Ukraine. Canada stands prepared to send ships to aid export of Ukrainian grain; a metaphor for the grain that binds the two nations historically. Plant breeders and research circles are aware that Canada's famous wheat owes a debt of gratitude to Ukraine as an industry built upon a kernel of grain from Halychyna in Western Ukraine.

Red Fife -- Canada's oldest wheat allied with Slow Food International's Ark of Taste as a catalogue of endangered heritage foods, and its hybrids including Marquis were descended from wheat grown in Halychanka, Western Ukraine. Plant breeders created new wheat variations with the use of the hereditary base of Halychanka. There is an origins story associated with Red Fife relating to a few grains from a ship full of wheat docked at Glasgow that were tucked into a hatband.

Those grains were sent to a farmer whose name was David Fife who farmed in Otonabee, Peterborough County, in Ontario. A friend from Glasgow where David Fife was originally from, sent farmer Fife grains he took from a ship carrying winter wheat from Danzig, (now Gdansk, Poland). Farmer Fife planted the seeds in the spring of 1842. True to its name, winter wheat requires a cold winter; a single seed sprouted and matured out of which farmer Fife developed Red Fife, still valued today for bread.

Eventually Marquis was derived from Red Fife, a cross with an Indian wheat, Hard Red Calcutta, maturing earlier with a higher yield than Red Fife and with similar bread-making qualities. Marquis was released in 1911, and named the best wheat variety in Canada. Marquis took up 80 to 90 percent of total wheat acreage by 1918, from northern Saskatchewan to southern Nebraska, establishing Canada as a wheat export breadbasket.

 

Ukraine is usually a major producer of cereals such as maize and wheat    Reuters

 

Other Ukrainian grains; Odessa 4 and Myronivka 808 have as well formed a portion of Canadian wheat breeding programs. Barley from Brandon was shared with a Kharkiv research institute. Wheat has been sowed along Ukraine's Black Sea coast since 2700 BC, where the country's black soil lends itself marvelously well to the production of the staple grain. Its broad plains, deep rivers and fresh water from snow melt off mountains enabled wheat export from ports like Odessa.

Whether occupied by Russia, Austria or Poland, Ukrainian wheat obscured its origins, labelled for export under the name of the occupying power. For much of recent history Ukraine was not thought of as a separate region. Known as "Little Russia" in the 18th and 19th centuries, yet in the fifth century when the Ukrainian capital Kyiv was founded, the regional importance of Ukraine kept it a vassal state to whichever neighbour was most powerful at the time.

"Everything relates back to the backbone of Marquis. As a direct descendant of Red Fife [Halychanka], the [Ukrainian] contribution is there."

"For the longest time, the standard for winter hardiness in our winter wheat trials was a variety called Kharkov [named after the city of Kharkiv, home to one of the largest national plant gene banks]."

Dr. George Fedak, research scientist emeritus, Agriculture and AgriFood Canada

Pictured is a wheat field in western Ukraine   AFP via Getty Images

North Korea In Extremis

"If senior elites start dying en masse -- there are quite a lot of them, and we don't know if they are vaccinated -- if many of them die of it, there may be questions asked about why North Korea didn't vaccinate earlier,"

"It is going to test his [Kim's] leadership, and it is going to create some urgency for very creative storytelling in the North Korean propaganda apparatus."

"We've seen Kim Jong Un crying about the nation's sacrifices (in the past) -- I think this is the type of thing he may do to try dampen outrage."

"North Korean citizens have definitely been through a lot. The first thing he could do is really apologize and take some blame for it."

"We know that they flew in citizens from across North Korea to attend and celebrate that event [last month's military parade], That's the perfect petri dish for this virus to spread, so I think that parade will go down in history as a very bad idea for North Korea."

Chad O'Carroll, managing director, Seoul-based NK News outlet

In photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is shown attends a meeting of ruling party members on May 17, 2022   AP

"The fact that Kim Jong Un has decided to come out and publicly announce this health crisis is quite telling," 

"[It] may have a political element, obviously."

Lina Yoon, senior Korea researcher, Human Rights Watch

 

"There is no evidence to show that North Korea has access to enough vaccines to protect its population from COVID-19."

"With the first official news of a COVID-19 outbreak in the country, continuing on this path could cost many lives and would be an unconscionable dereliction of upholding the right to health."

Boram Jang, researcher, Amnesty International East Asia 

 

"There's no good option."

"But there are things that can be done that can begin to ameliorate some of the worse consequences if they're done quickly."

J. Stephen Morrison, director, Center on Global Health Policy, Center for Strategic and International Studies

It took North-Korea-watchers by surprise to see and hear the leader of the hermit kingdom publicly admit his country is in for a really rough ride, lamenting the fact that COVID-19 finally infiltrated the country despite Kin Jong Un's approach to total closure of his country to outside penetration, taking his cue from Chin's 'Zero COVID' approach in defense against SARS-CoV-2. Reliance in North Korea appears to have been based solely on its closed border, to keep COVID at bay.

 

Although North Korea should have been and was designated as a prime country to claim participation in the UN-sponsored global vaccine sharing program, COVAX, North Korean leadership expressed no interest, much less desire to take advantage of the opportunity to bring in vaccines for a country-wide vaccination campaign. And nor has the country invested in lab testing for COVID.

 

Its population, in a country where medical facilities are at best functioning at a low level, has been left vulnerable to a raging wave of the infectious Omicron variety of COVID. Out of the total population of 25 million people, a week ago the recorded coronavirus case load reached 2 million. This, in a society with zero-level vaccines, poor medical infrastructure and strained/limited ties to the global health community. In the past that has been North Korea's choice, to maintain a distance.

 

The country now, however faces a crisis situation with its population vulnerable to a galloping virus taking full advantage of a population unprepared to face a pandemic. Health experts weigh its chances from afar; where it could be prevailed upon to accept donations of antiviral treatments and protective medical gear for its health workers to slow down the outbreak, protecting those most in need of shelter from the ravages of the virus. Whether North Korea would accept international offers, is another thing. It has failed to the present to respond to a U.S. offer of assistance.

 

North Korea in the past several years steadfastly refused many offers of coronavirus vaccine in preference to shuttering its borders to the world, a choice that is now seen to have failed spectacularly. Leading experts to give warning that the death toll in the country could reach and exceed 100,000. And within that unvaccinated population lies the prospect of fertile ground for the virus to further mutate into other, perhaps more virulent strains.

 

North Korea last month staged a massive military parade in Pyongyang. The fast spreading BA.2 subvariant of Omicron has been identified in the country. At this juncture late in the game, vaccines that might have been useful in preventing a crisis on this scale cannot now be administered swiftly enough and sufficiently broadly to halt the viral spread. 

There appears to be one country only that North Korea pays heed to, and that is China. Flights have resumed between China and North Korea this week for the first time in several years, with observers speculating that they carry badly needed emergency health supplies for a country that locked itself into a hapless situation of wide-open opportunity for a ravenous virus.

North Korean military personnel have been mobilized to assist in the distribution of medical supplies as Pyongyang grapples with high Covid case numbers.

"It looks really bad, They are facing the rampant spread of Omicron without protection from vaccines, without much – if any – immunity in the population and without access to most of the drugs that have been used to treat COVID elsewhere."

"I’m sure the North Koreans will still be very wary of accepting major international aid and going back to the situation of the 1990s, when there were multiple different aid agencies operating in the country and this was felt by the leadership to be humiliating and potentially destabilising."

Owen Miller, lecturer in Korean studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, London University

 

Exotic Viruses Leaving Home

"We do not have to panic. It [Monkeypox] is not something you can acquire in a grocery store or on public transportation."

"We have to do a complete investigation to understand all the links in the chain." 

"What we are worried about is prolonged close contact, and it could happen in any kind of setting."

Dr.Mylene Drouin, Montreal director of Public health

"I am a little concerned that we are hearing about a lot of it [Monkeypox being discovered in countries around the world] here and there in other countries."

Earl Brown, virologist, University of Ottawa

Child with lesions from monkeypox, courtesy CDC archive

Suddenly a new virus raises its unappealing head as it travels the world from its home in Central and West Africa. Monkeypox was first identified in 1958 and has fairly well remained in place where it was first discovered to have emerged. The virus appears to be a cousin, so to speak, of smallpox. Now, just recently, cases of Monkeypox have been seen in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy,the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia. It has travelled far and it is travelling fairly quickly.

Clusters are being picked up here and there, and in Montreal, public health officials were confirmed to be looking into 17 possible cases. Not good news; on the other hand, the medical community is urging the public not to be too concerned. Medical authorities across Canada are now alert to cases that include certain identifying characteristics: fever, headache, muscle aches and exhaustion, all symptoms common to a whole host of other conditions. None of which, however, bear the symptoms of a distinctive rash and painful lesions appearing often on the palms of hands.

The cases suspected of being Monkeypox, but awaiting verification have been occurring among men between the ages of 30 and 55. And they are men further characterized as those who have sex with other men, explained Dr.Drouin. Some of these cases have been seen with oral and genital lesions, but none yet confirmed through laboratory testing, and nor do they represent severe cases. While they are linked to sex networks, being detected in clinics treating sexually transmitted diseases, health officials deny that Monkeypox is transmitted sexually.

It is spread through close contact and droplets. No connection has been established between the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the newly revealed spread of Monkeypox. In Africa where the virus' presence is more common, it is rodents that act as reservoirs. Monkeypox re-emerged in Nigeria in 2017, after over 40  years with no reported cases. Over 450 reported cases have erupted since then; eight thought to have been exported internationally.

"This is the first time in modern human history where we have so many people who have never been exposed to a pox virus and have never been vaccinated against smallpox."

"Perhaps what the teaching point of this is, the public is going to have to become scientifically and more microbiologically literate in understanding that with climate change, with very rapid international travel, with ignoring basic health recommendations, we will see one kind of outbreak after another."

Dr. Gregory Poland, head, Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group

Monkeypox often starts with flu-like symptoms before causing a chickenpox-like rash on the face and body.

Health authorities have been alerted to an unusual number of cases internationally reported in recent weeks leading to questions of whether human-to-human transmission has undergone a change. Whether viral illness is different than it has been in the past; whether its proximity to the COVID pandemic may be a factor in its presence. A suspicion that perhaps the presence of COVID has increased susceptibility in some people transmitting it to other victims.

In the United Kingdom a program has been initiated to vaccinate close contacts of cases, along with health workers, with smallpox vaccine.Two known strains of Monkeypox have been identified; the Congo strain, with a ten percent case fatality and the West African strain, with a one percent case fatality rate. A sobering statistic. The less virulent strain is being seen in the international outbreak. 

According to Ottawa virologist Earl Brown, there is a likelihood that people immunized against smallpox would have a level of protection against Monkeypox. Before the 1970s, smallpox vaccine was regularly administered to schoolchildren in Canada, until smallpox was eradicated in 1981.

"Monkeypox is in the same family of virus as smallpox, but it should not be confused with smallpox in levels of alarm."

"With smallpox, 10% to 30% of people can die. With this strain of Monkeypox that is circulating right now, that death rate in Africa is 1% or less."

Dr. Gregory Poland, head, Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group

"Russia has earlier indicated that it is placing for example these S-400 anti-aircraft missiles in the Kola Peninsula, and it has earlier said it’s placing these missiles in Crimea."

"This is normal practice. Russia is using these systems to replace the older S-300 rockets."

"The reporting was a bit surprising. There was a tinge of foreign policy in the Moscow Times piece that cited President Putin’s comments on (potential Finnish membership of) NATO."

"The positioning of S-400 Triumf missiles near Saint Petersburg is evidence that Saint Petersburg is an important metropolis for Russia."

Finnish Defence Minister Jussi Niinistö

Russian Iskander-M missile launcher on display during Victory Day parade Photograph:( AFP

 A convoy is shown on a video  obtained by Reuters, comprised of over a dozen military vehicles, some thought to be carrying Iskander missiles en route to Vyborg, a Russian city adjacent the border with Finland.The deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev -- a close colleague of Vladimir Putin who once played musical chairs with Putin, occupying the presidency while the prime ministership was temporarily taken by Putin in a bid to return to the presidency legally under the Russian constitution which he later manipulated to make it legal for him to continue as President -- warned should Finland and Sweden join NATO, Russia would undertake to move nuclear weapons closer to the two countries whose move to join NATO the Kremlin viewed as threatening.

 

"There can be no more talk of our nuclear-free status for the Baltic", he remarked on April 14.

Traditionally neutral, Finland and Sweden decided to break with that Cold War convention, in favour of defending themselves against a neighbour whose moves of aggression could be anticipated on the basis of the example before the eyes of the world, where Ukraine is now in active conflict forced upon it by Moscow's 'special military operation'. Neither Finland nor Sweden have any aspirations to test their own military's mettle facing off against a potential Russian invasion without an additional bit of defence; the combined strength of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

This represents somewhat of a miscalculation on the part of Vladimir Putin, consumed with rage over NATO expansion within the Russian Federation's 'near abroad', taunting Moscow as it were, with its too-close-for-comfort presence. An already-suspicious Putin arrived to a state of paranoia, a state which possibly inured him to the kind of introspection that might have warned him that he would be risking a great deal by launching into a conflict with Ukraine whose reaction to being occupied on a larger scale than the Donbas was obviously underestimated.

Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting via teleconference on May 17.   EPA

 

The scenario that Mr. Putin envisioned and was intent on forestalling, was in fact accelerated by his very actions in bringing war to Ukraine with its burden of civilian and military deaths, destroyed cities, millions of displaced homeless and refugees and Russia's own massive losses in dead commanders as well as servicemen, and the destruction of war machines resulting from Ukrainian defence and bold counter-attacks. The missiles were reportedly parked inside Russia's borders next to Ukraine before the February24 invasion before the decision was made to move them at this juncture.

Now that NATO acceptance of Finland and Sweden is assured, Mr. Putin finds it useful to move the nuclear-capable-warhead missiles to locations close to its borders with Finland. Finland appears to be calmly assessing the situation, finding nothing too much out of the ordinary by the move taken by its mercurial neighbour. And taking it all in stride as far as its reaction can be seen and analyzed by the outside world looking in. What is being discussed and analyzed within Finland in the security of government and military chambers may be another story.

S-400 Triump is an anti-aircraft weapon system. Photo: mil.ru

 

From NATO's perspective, the organization stands to gain by taking Finland and Sweden under its protective wing in the sense that they would become instant "net contributors" to European security. The two countries' absorption into the group would simplify defence of NATO's Baltic members, increasing the alliance's borders with Russia with the addition of 1,900 kilometers representing the border between Russia and Finland.

Turkey, which has long since become a liability politically within NATO, balanced against the immense size of its military, is the fly in the ointment with Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatening to weigh in against their accession. The Nordic countries, demands Ankara, must stop its support for Kurdish militant groups on their soil. Their bans on arms sales to Turkey must also be lifted. This, from a NATO member-country which contracted the purchase of Russian weapons for its military, disrupting the interoperability of NATO member groups' military hardware.