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  80-year-old Japanese man conquers Mount Everest

Yuichiro Miura became the oldest man to summit Mt. Everest. It was his third time. He reached the summit when he was 70 and 75, too.  An 81-year-old Nepalese man plans to climb the summit next week. 

By Binaj Gururacharya, Associated Press / May 23, 2013

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An 80-year-old Japanese extreme skier, Yuichiro Miura, stands atop the summit of Mount Everest as he becomes the oldest person to climb the world's tallest mountain Thursday, May 23, 2013.

(AP Photo/MIURA DOLPHINS CO., LTD.)

Katmandu, Nepal

An 80-year-old Japanese man became the oldest conqueror of Mount Everest on Thursday, a feat he called "the world's best feeling" even with an 81-year-old Nepalese climber not far behind him.

Yuichiro Miura, a former extreme skier who also climbed the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) peak when he was 70 and 75, reached the summit at 9:05 a.m. local time, according to a Nepalese mountaineering official and Miura's Tokyo-based support team.

It was a moment Japanese news agency Kyodo captured on video from 10 kilometers (6 miles) away, using a camera crew at 5,500 meters (18,000 feet) elevation on another mountain.

"We have arrived at the summit," Miura said in a radio transmission to Kyodo from the world's highest point. "80 years and 7 months. ... The world's most incredible mountaineering team had helped me all the way up here."

 

Miura and his son Gota made a phone call from the summit, prompting his daughter Emili to smile broadly and clap her hands in footage shown by Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

"I made it!" Miura said over the phone. "I never imagined I could make it to the top of Mount Everest at age 80. This is the world's best feeling, although I'm totally exhausted. Even at 80, I can still do quite well."

Nepalese mountaineering official Gyanendra Shrestha, at the Everest base camp, confirmed that Miura had reached the summit and was the oldest person to do so.

The previous oldest was Nepal's Min Bahadur Sherchan, the 81-year-old on Miura's heels.
Sherchan is preparing to scale the peak next week despite digestive problems he suffered several days ago. On Wednesday, Sherchan said by telephone from the base camp that he was in good health and "ready to take up the challenge."

The two elderly mountaineers have crossed paths before.
Miura, who had become the oldest Everest climber with his ascent at age 70, would have reclaimed the title in 2008 as a 75-year-old, but Sherchan, then 76, reached the summit just a day before he did.
Emili Miura said Wednesday that his father "doesn't really care" about the rivalry. "He's doing it for his own challenge."

Sherchan's team leader, Temba, who uses one name, said Sherchan will congratulate the new record holder when he returns to the base camp, and that he won't turn back until he completes his mission.
Sherchan got good news Thursday when Nepal's government approved financial aid for his climb.
The Cabinet approved 1 million rupees ($11,200) for Sherchan's expedition and waived $70,000 in permit fees, said Bimal Gautam, the press adviser to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

Miura conquered the mountain despite undergoing heart surgery in January for an irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia, his fourth heart operation since 2007, according to his daughter. He also broke his pelvis and left thigh bone in a 2009 skiing accident.

On his expedition's website, he explained his attempt to scale Everest at an advanced age: "It is to challenge (my) own ultimate limit. It is to honor the great Mother Nature."

He said a successful climb would raise the bar for what is possible, a point echoed after his success by Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.

"This will be deeply touching to all the people of Japan. And, especially, in an aging society, it will also give much courage and hope to all elderly people," Suga said at a news conference.
Miura became famous when he was a young man as a daredevil speed skier.

He skied down Everest's South Col in 1970, using a parachute to brake his descent. The feat was captured in the Oscar-winning 1975 documentary, "The Man Who Skied Down Everest." He has also skied down Mount Fuji.

It wasn't until Miura was 70, however, that he first climbed to the top of Everest. When he summited again at 75, he claimed to be the only man to accomplish the feat twice in his 70s. After that, he said he was determined to climb again at age 80.

Piltdown Man: A hoaxer still pursued

  By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

A nonsense: Chris Stringer holds a reconstruction of Piltdown Man's skull

It was a shocker, no doubt about it. The Piltdown Man scandal is arguably the greatest scientific fraud ever perpetrated in the UK. 

When the fake remains of our earliest ancestor were unmasked for what they really were, shame was heaped on the research establishment. But exactly 100 years to the week that this extraordinary hoax was presented to the world, the Piltdown Man "fossils" are back in the lab and the subject of serious study.

The intention is not to try to re-authenticate them; rather, the purpose is to try to identify once and for all who was responsible for the deception.

The majority view is that it was Charles Dawson, a solicitor, antiquarian and amateur palaeontologist from the southern English county of Sussex.

He was at hand for most of the major "discoveries" at the dig sites on the edge of Piltdown village.
Most people believe his hand was responsible for planting the key faux specimens in local gravels.
These included an ape-like jaw fragment, complete with molars and a canine tooth, some human-looking cranial parts, plus assorted stone tools and ancient mammal remains. Much of the haul was stained to reflect long-term burial in the gravels, to make the artefacts look like they truly were many hundreds of thousands of years old.

The collection was utter rubbish, of course: a mix of bones - some very modern - that had in a number of cases been crudely filed to give them the shape expected of an ancient human species.
But although chemical testing finally exposed the fraud in 1953, there has always been some doubt over the culprit's true identity.

 

The Piltdown materials were stained to make them look old

 

Hence, the new battery of testing now under way, which aims to close the book on the remaining uncertainty, according to Prof Chris Stringer from London's Natural History Museum (NHM).
"What we're trying to do is apply forensic level techniques to this material," he told the BBC World Service Discovery programme.

"We're trying to find out how many kinds of staining techniques there were, how many methods of modification, how many specimens were used between all these assemblages. The more we narrow it down to one person, the more in my view it will point to Dawson's central involvement in the whole thing."

The Piltdown 'cricket bat'

DNA testing should determine whether the jaw fragment really was from an orangutan or some other kind of ape. 

 

Isotopic analysis could reveal the original locations from where some materials were sourced, since different regions of the world have characteristic isotopic compositions in their rocks and groundwater. There is a suspicion, for example, that the skull pieces were actually taken from an Egyptology collection.

Radiocarbon dating will tell the team the precise ages of the artefacts. That jawbone is probably a few hundred years old at most, but the new science ought to be definitive.

And spectroscopy should expose the chemistry of the staining fluids. If one "cocktail" is found to have been used to colour all the materials, it would hint strongly that a single perpetrator was at work, especially if that recipe was used at all dig sites. That is because only Dawson knew the location of the second site.

Dr Matt Pope from University College London has even been back to the Piltdown gravels themselves.

"We want to go back to the original records of the excavations, to follow the logic of Dawson and others involved and to see these deposits with modern archaeological and geological eyes," he told us.

"This will give a better understanding of the context of the fraud. It will provide samples that allow us to do two very separate things. One will provide materials we can study to understand the material basis of the fraud itself. But also - and for me this is the most exciting thing as a human origins researcher - it can allow us to begin the systematic study of the genuine part of this hoax - the Ice Age gravels, their age, their significance and the genuine finds associated with them."

Charles Dawson (L), pictured working the Piltdown gravels, was a solicitor

 

Understanding which extinct animals should be associated with the sediments at Piltdown is important. Bones of mastodon (an elephant-like creature) and rhino remains formed part of the hoaxers' plan. They were genuine in the sense that they were very old, but they had no business being in the Sussex gravels

And Prof Adrian Lister's research may well have identified the true origin of some of this material.

The jaw fragment probably came from a young orangutan

 

"Fossils of the mastodon and the rhino are quite rare. There's really only one place where you can excavate remains of the mastodon species. It's a deposit in Suffolk called the Red Crag; and this deposit is between two and three million years old," the NHM researcher explained.

"Even back then these species were recognized as being quite ancient, and that was quite deliberate because, not only, was it an attempt to make the site look real but also that the human remains were very old."

You would be forgiven for thinking that the British scientific community would really have liked to pack the Piltdown specimens in a box and have them crushed. But the memory and interest is maintained, if for no other reason than the whole affair serves as a warning for how things can go horribly wrong.

That said, it proves also the power of the scientific method ultimately to find the truth. Prevalent theories stand or fall in the face of constant questioning; and although it took 40 years to finally unmask the deceit, the Piltdown claims were looking ragged long before their eventual collapse because of truly compelling discoveries made elsewhere in the world.

"People obviously have to keep their guard up when there is some new find," reflected Prof Stringer.
"Sometimes, if something seems too good to be true, maybe it is too good to be true. And just because something fits your theories you shouldn't therefore lower your guard and believe it absolutely from the start; you have to assess how the find fits into the bigger pattern."

You can hear Jonathan Amos tell the story of Piltdown Man this week on the BBC World Service's Discovery programme, which is first broadcast on Monday at 1932. The Piltdown specimens will be on display at the Natural History Museum from Tuesday, in a special cabinet near to the dinosaurs gallery in the NHM's blue zone.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow him on Twitter: @BBCAmos

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• Russian beauty queen puts spotlight on Russia's official corruption

Her public denunciation of Russia's corruption surprised some this week. It also coincided with one of the Kremlin's periodic efforts to convince Russians that something is being done about it.

By Fred Weir, Correspondent / November 23, 2012

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Natalia Pereverzeva - a Russian beauty queen - spoke out again against endemic corruption during a contest in the Phillipines.

Aaron Favila/AP

Moscow

A Russian beauty queen garnered global headlines this week by standing by her impassioned denunciation of the endemic corruption that demoralizes society and saps the economic life of her homeland, made in an essay she'd written that was supposed to be about why she's proud to be a Russian.

"But my Russia – it is also my poor, long-suffering country, mercilessly torn to pieces by greedy, dishonest, unbelieving people," Natalia Pereverzeva wrote in an essay that was part of her entrance requirement to the Miss Earth competition this week in Manila, Philippines.

"My Russia – it is a great artery, from which the 'chosen' few people are draining away its wealth. My Russia is a beggar. My Russia cannot help her elderly and orphans. From it, bleeding, like from a sinking ship, engineers, doctors, teachers are fleeing, because they have nothing to live on," she wrote.

Ms. Pereverzeva's outburst was almost certainly spontaneous, based on her own personal experience and straight from the heart.

But it also happens to coincide with one of the periodic anticorruption crusades launched from the Kremlin to convince the Russian public that something is being done to combat the official graft that by some accounts siphons off as much as a third of Russia's gross domestic product and undermines the effectiveness of all government efforts, from law enforcement to preparations for the Olympic Games.

Recent weeks have seen the fall from grace of at least one top official, as well as the most sweeping set of allegations about official graft – involving several government agencies – to be revealed to the public in years. Some experts suggest that Vladimir Putin, now embarked on his third term as president, may be using his vast powers and political capital to finally confront Russia's most intractable scourge. Others argue that it's a public relations campaign at best, or more likely a cover for political score-settling among bureaucrats, which is traditionally the most common reason that explicit corruption charges surface in Russia.
Whatever the deeper political truth, the facts about everyday official graft so far revealed are truly shocking, and they provide some hard numbers to back up Pereverzeva's emotional assertions.

 

Earlier this month Russia's defense minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, was dismissed after investigators implicated him in a massive kickback scheme that allegedly embezzled almost $100-million through improper sales of military-owned properties. Mr. Serdyukov has not been charged, but several of his subordinates are facing serious criminal allegations.

In October, Russian media reported that investigators were looking into the alleged theft of $427-million in the preparations for September's summit of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), which was hosted by Russia in the far eastern port of Vladivostok at a mind-boggling cost of $21-billion.

Planning for the APEC summit was overseen by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, a close protege of President Vladimir Putin, who has been implicated in corruption allegations before.

And last week the head of the presidential administration and another close Putin protege, Sergei Ivanov, admitted that more than $200-million had been misappropriated from Russia's ambitious Glonass space program, which Moscow hopes will become a full-scale satellite-based Russian alternative to the US GPS network and the European Union's future Galileo positioning system.

"The struggle against corruption was necessary because at some point it became clear to the leadership that corruption is a threat not only for the society but for authorities as well," says Kirill Kabanov, head of the nongovernmental National Anti-Corruption Committee.

"At some point of the development of the system it became clear that corruption is not a cement of bureaucracy but the system that is destroying the country. The situation has reached the boiling point. Corruption is a deadly threat to national security... For Putin it is necessary to prove that he controls the country. What we're seeing is not a struggle against corruption at some lower levels, but confrontation with corruption in specific sectors [of government]. One step leads to another, and makes it necessary to continue. Putin doesn't like to back off so I think he will go on with it," he adds.

But other experts are not so hopeful. Anton Pominov, research director for the Russian branch of the international corruption watchdog Transparency International says it's more likely we're witnessing another bout of Russia's interminable bureaucratic wars, which are mainly about dividing up power and property, or perhaps a Kremlin-run public relations campaign aimed at calming the concerns of conscientious Russians like Pereverzeva.

Most of the loudly-declared official anticorruption drives of the past have, indeed, produced no lasting results.

"Corruption is an institutional problem, not an interpersonal one," says Mr. Pominov. "The public is made to believe that if someone goes to prison, then corruption has been successfully fought. But that's not enough and, in any case, even now we see that people at the top are not suffering," he adds.
"We need to see institutional changes before we start believing it. For example, half of the military budget is secret, in other words nobody answers for it. An institutional change would make that more transparent, enable the public to access information and see where the money goes...  The government needs to reform the way it works, and the public should be educated so that it can be informed and empowered to act against corruption," he says.
In a public opinion survey conducted by the independent Levada Center earlier this year, corruption was named by respondents as the country's No. 3 problem after price rises and low incomes. In the poll, 57 percent of Russians described corruption as an inevitable evil; 26 percent said it was less than in the disastrous decade of the 1990's while 9 percent said it was worse.

"Putin's present campaign has nothing to do with the struggle against corruption," argues Georgy Satarov, head of the independent InDem Foundation, which specializes in corruption studies, and a one time Kremlin aide to former President Boris Yeltsin.

"Putin periodically presents himself as the arbiter in bureaucratic conflicts and allows groups to trample one another, but the goal is to frighten officials and keep them all in line," he says.
The basic system of universal corruption will continue, Mr. Satarov says, because it is fundamental to the maintenance of Kremlin power.

"We have a saying; 'once compromised, forever controllable.' At the top they are convinced that a corrupted subordinate will remain loyal because he is allowed to steal, and he will always fear being exposed as a criminal or thrown out of the feeding-trough...

"The tragedy is that this is a false idea of stability, one that undermines the effective work of government and brings only personal stability for those at the top."

Kim Kardashian backtracks on pro-Israel tweets after fierce backlash

Saturday, 17 November 2012

American reality TV star Kim Kardashian received violent criticism for her pro-Israeli tweets. (Reuters)

inShare

By Al Arabiya

American television reality star Kim Kardashian faced a fierce backlash from some of her 17 million followers on Twitter following a tweet in which she was “praying for everyone in Israel.”

Her statement was received with displeasure from some of her followers who even sent her death threats and prompted to her to “pray” Palestinians as well, before moving to delete both posts.

“Die in hell,” wrote one tweep. Less brutal critics said they had “lost all respect for her,” and called her a “disgrace to her people” and outright “disgusting.”

“Further enhancing your reputation as a dumb porn star... RT @KimKardashian Praying for everyone in Israel,” one person responded to Kardashian’s statement. Another one said, “Kim i love you but please don't pray for Israel. They are murderers.” Others told her she should be “praying for Palestine, not Israel.”

According to Twitchy.com, which archives all tweets even if a user deletes them, five minutes after the initial post, Kardashian attempted to appease her haters with the follow-up tweet: “praying for everyone in Palestine and across the world!”

But her maneuver to amend the situation and calm down her angry followers failed as the controversy continued.

“Ha! Kim Kardashian has deleted her Palestine sympathy tweet! Was right to be unconvinced & she didn't have the stones to stand by her words!,” one Twitter used wrote in a statement.

“Hahaha @KimKardashian deleted her tweets, must have had SERIOUS backlash from her idiotic uninformed tweets,” another one said.

However, both tweets disappeared from her account and she has resumed discussing other matters– like her two-hour Tracy Anderson workout on Saturday.

Kardashian addressed the controversy on her blog later on Friday, with a post entitled “A Message to You Guys.”

Kardashian said that she wanted to explain her two tweets, which were deleted subsequently, were her prayers to all Palestinians and Israelis, regardless of their religion or political beliefs.

“I decided to take down the tweets because I realized that some people were offended and hurt by what I said, and for that I apologize,” she wrote in another tweet.

She added that she hoped for a resolution and prays for people worldwide who are innocent victims of similar crossfire.

 

French interior minister accused of clearing out tramps and gypsies in stylish part of Paris 'so his wife can go shopping in peace'

 Saturday, Oct 27 2012

The French interior minister has been accused of ordering police to remove tramps and gypsies from his neighbourhood 'so his wife can shop in peace'.

Manuel Valls, 50, reportedly told officers to show 'zero tolerance' in evicting homeless people from the stylish district around the Place de la Bastille near his home in Paris.

According to a satirical weekly, Le Canard Enchaîné, Mr Valls ordered the clean-up at the request of his glamorous wife, Anne Gravoin, after she allegedly complained of being accosted by a drunken down-and-out on a trip to supermarket.

Elegant couple: Manuel Valls reportedly cracked down on the homeless people in his area after one accosted wife Anne Gravoin

On watch: Officers have now been stationed around the fashionable area near the Place de la Bastille, pictured, and are constantly moving on tramps and gypsies

Officers have now been stationed outside the Franprix store, and managers told the magazine police had now been outside for two weeks, moving loiterers on.

Yesterday, Mr Valls said 'categorically' denied he was behind the police clean-up operation, saying the claims were 'unfounded', according to the Daily Telegraph.
Paris police said the forceful approach was in response to complaints by right-wing politicians and petitions from residents over the past three months.

But local officers reportedly said the move came 'because Madame Valls was very shocked by women begging with their babies. It was a humanitarian response.'

Ms Gravoin, a classically trained violinist, is no stranger to controversy. She was criticised in August after saying of prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault’s wife Brigitte: 'It has to be said that a musician is a little more glamorous than Mrs Ayrault, a German teacher from the suburbs of Nantes!'

Raids on Roma: Mr Valls previously expelled hundreds of gypsies from camps in the Parisian suburb of Evry, where he was mayor

She is said to regularly accompany first lady Valerie Trierweile 'to choose dresses and outfits in the capital’s top fashion stores.'

This is not the first time her husband's heavy-handed treatment of gypsies on his own doorstep has come under scrutiny.

In August, the minister ordered police to destroy a Roma camp in his political powerbase and to deport illegal immigrants living there.

Officers armed with truncheons and shields moved into the settlement in the Paris suburb of Evry, where Mr Valls was mayor for 11 years from 2001.

He was said to have acted because the camp was 'dangerously close to a commuter railway line' and could create public health problems.

'Not involved': Mr Valls is famous for his tough approach to down-and-outs in Evry, pictured, but he 'categorically' denied he was behind the latest police clean-up operation

Police arrived at 5am, and by 7am, young children could be seen dragging suitcases, bags and bicycles away from the site.

More than 70 people were evicted from caravans and makeshift huts, with most expected to be returned to Romania.

The raid was said to show that the Socialist firebrand was determined to ‘clean up illegal immigrants in his own back yard’, according to a party colleague
.
The source added: 'By breaking up a camp in his constituency he is showing he means business.’

Mr Valls said the camps were a ‘challenge’ to ‘people living together’ and insisted the police would uphold all court orders aimed at dismantling them.

His tough stance on crime and illegal gypsy camps has seen him nicknamed the 'Nicolas Sarkozy of the Left'.

Familiar approach: Mr Valls has been nicknamed the 'Nicolas Sarkozy of the Left' because of the former president's similar hardline stance on gypsies

Mr Sarkozy started a purge on Romas in the summer of 2010, pointing to the fact that up to 15,000 were living in camps across France, and proposing that police go to Romania to fight trafficking and other crime.

Roma groups accused Mr Sarkozy of ‘ethnic cleansing’, pointing to the fact that gipsies had been targeted by the Nazis during the Second World War.

Mr Valls is currently the most popular politician in France, with a 75 per cent approval rate, according to Ifop.

Shortly before tackling the suburb of Evry, he ordered the destruction of numerous Roma camps across France, with sites broken up in Lille, Lyon and Marseilles, as well as Paris.

 The Face of Evil

The descent of the human mind to the most degraded position possible seems to know no bounds.  It is well enough understood that among us live vile predators upon others who have no regard nor compassion for others' well-being, and who feel no compunction about imposing dreadful suffering upon others.  From time to time there are accounts of people whose despicable acts are so remorselessly evil it's difficult to believe them to be plausible.

But these are events that have occurred, and they continue to take place.  Where psychopaths whose genetic composition lacks a fundamental emotion of empathy - feeling anything for any other person other than to view them as potential victims to be exploited for their personal satisfaction - prowl within society.  We know that society is well infiltrated with people from all walks of life who think nothing of harming children.

Most normal people simply cannot imagine the kind of vicious mindset that would exploit the vulnerability and helplessness of children.  And then yet another news item hits the front pages and we are reminded, yet again, of the monsters that live among us.  An eight-year-old boy in Texas, living close to an older boy who had cornered him and raped him, two weeks later was accosted by the thirteen-year-old and doused with gasoline.

The young boy was tied to a tree and set on fire.  To ensure that he told no one that his neighbour had raped him.  Robbie Middleton was discovered still alive.  He was hospitalized, and eventually underwent 200 operations.  His mother spoke about what she saw when she first came across her son: "All of his hair was scorched, and there was skin hanging around his ankles."

Robbie Middleton lived for thirteen years, hospitalized, his wounds never quite healing, burnt beyond recognition.  And three years after Robbie Middleton had been attacked by his neighbour, that neighbour, Don Collins, raped another eight-year old boy.  And this time he was convicted of the assault. 

Robbie Middleton had no wish to speak about what he had experienced at the hands of his attacker.  But because he wanted to ensure that Don Collins would not repeat his horrible attacks on any other boys, he agreed to a deathbed video statement.  For the first time he revealed what had happened to him.  Two weeks before his eighth birthday, "Don Collins pulled my clothes down and started raping me."

On the day of his birthday, "Don grabbed me by my shoulder and threw gas in my face, after that I don't really remember anything", he recounted in his video statement.  Thirteen years after the horrendous attack that he suffered, Robbie Middleton died of skin cancer that doctors linked to the burns he had sustained in that last attack.

"Thirteen years of living hell" was what he experienced before he died.  His parents launched a civil suit for wrongful death against Don Collins.  They won $150-billion in a settlement against Collins.  "I grieved for a long time but after a while, Robert became the same happy-go-lucky child and life was good, life was liveable again", said Robbie's mother.

Her son made the video because, as his family's lawyer said "This is a plea for justice".  "He did it because he was afraid that Don might attack another child and that was Robert's motivation for giving that deposition", his mother explained.  It's a strange notion of justice in fact, when innocents suffer so horrendously, and the law finally catches up to the very personification of evil.

Surprise, America!

"Part of what's going on here is that the stigma associated with not being part of any religious community has declined.  In some parts of the country, there is still a stigma.  but overall, it's not the way it used to be."
John Green, religion politics specialist, University of Akron, Pew survey adviser

For a country known for its evangelical robustness, and its export of same to other countries, to spread the Good Word, it is somewhat surprising to discover that the most religious country in the Western world appears to be winding down its reputation.  In the not-so-distant past, political contenders for the presidency or vice-presidency of the United States would have had to present their credentials as life-long, devout Protestants.

And then, the remarkable occurred, a Roman Catholic became president; an anomaly to be sure, but one that would be repeated when suddenly the barriers that ensured no alternatives to Protestantism would ever grace the White House, came crashing down with the challenge of a Mormon to the seat of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Of course before that occurred women and also a Jew were placed on the vice-presidential ticket.

If this kind of relaxation of vital standards continue, will it be all that long before a woman is accepted to lead the country?  Or will a gay president make the cut before a woman finally does?  All this speculation becomes a possibility with the newly emerged statistics telling one and all that the percentage of Protestant adults in the U.S. is now at 48%.  More amazing, there are currently none on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The current Republican ticket has a Roman Catholic and a Mormon as nominees.  The Pew study from whence these statistics have arisen, state also that fully 20% of Americans are now comfortable admitting that they have no religious affiliation, an incremental 5% increase in the past five years alone.  No affiliation does not necessarily equate with no religion.

It may include those who consider themselves to be "spiritual", others who may pray to a divine entity, but have no use for organized religious institutions.  Although when driving through any town or city one is confronted with an array of tightly-packed churches, their pews are no longer tightly packed with parishioners. 

And as Americans become less religious in character, they are more relaxed in social attitudes.  Those claiming no religious affiliation mostly support abortion rights and gay marriage as opposed to the general public's more modest rate of acceptance of those once-social deviations.  Those who claim no religious affiliation are more likely to vote Democratic.

Pew instructs the curious that the religiously unaffiliated represent a vital constituency within the Democratic party, just as evangelicals represent a vital constituency to the Republican party.  Should we be surprised?

"I keep coming back to that image of a woman in labour in prison begging for someone to listen and take her seriously and get her medical help.  And instead she's put in segregation.  She's made fun of."
Bryonie Baxter, president of the Council of Elizabeth Fry Societies of Ontario

We are a kinder, gentler society.  And as such we have high regard for the human rights of all within society.  That does include to some degree those who, to use that quaint old phrase "run afoul of the law".  No longer are sociopaths and psychopaths who do grave harm to society cast into damp, dank, dark cells to languish, tossed crusts of stale bread and water to sustain their miserable lives. 

Now there are various grades of prisons, from low- to high-security in reflection of the types of crimes committed. Social malefactors and women of the night were once thrown into prisons, shackled and held alongside other of society's miscasts, misfits, social embarrassments.

 We most certainly have come a long way, here in Canada, where prisoners may do all manner of things reflective of the freedoms of general society; study, attend lectures, view television, have the use of computers, have exposure to training in some areas where knowledge may gain them employment once back on the streets.

Prisons have their own medical staff, sociologists, psychiatrists, nurses, should it be required that they are called upon to perform their professional duties in aid of prisoners.  But when Gionni Lee Garlow, arrested and placed at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, asked for help because she was in labour, everyone at the prison simply ignored her pleas. 

And because she was so obstreperous, noisily calling attention to her condition and her pain and fear, she was moved to an isolated cell.

It has been reported that she screamed for hours.  Nurses on staff at the jail considered her, just as the guards did, a dreadful nuisance.  "They took her vitals.  They told her it was indigestion", said Bryonie Baxter, executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society, a group advocating on behalf of women.  It was phantom labour, the eight-month-pregnant woman was assured.

When, finally, one of the nurses saw one of the baby's feet emerging in a breech-position birth, she called for an ambulance.  When paramedics arrived it was clear there was no time to be wasted, and they managed to deliver the little boy, on the floor of the segregated cell. 

That kind of complicated birth would most likely have proceeded in hospital with a C-section.  Instead a risky procedure given the nature of the birth was the only option at the prison.

Ontario's Minister of Community Safety and Correction Services, herself a former delivery-room nurse, emphasized that pregnant women in jail are meant to have normal care, just as any other expectant mother would have.  "They are followed by a doctor and when they go into labour they are transferred to the hospital.  That's the normal procedure" said Madeleine Meilleur.

The new mother remains in jail, awaiting trial on fraud and drug charges, though the minister said she should be released to be with her first child, until the trial date.  The baby, having overcome some initial breathing problems is currently in the care of his grandmother.  His was a rude introduction into the world.

Cell death offers hope on fertility and cancer treatment

BBC News online - 2 September 2012

Chemotherapy can cause fertility problems

A discovery about how cells die could lead to ways to protect fertility in women having cancer treatment, researchers suggest.

Australian scientists found two specific proteins caused the death of early egg cells in the ovaries.
Blocking them meant cells survived the effects of radiotherapy, according to the study published in the journal Molecular Cell.
A UK expert said the research was an "encouraging starting point".

The researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Monash University and Prince Henry's Institute of Medical Research looked at egg cells called primordial follicle oocytes, which provide each woman's lifetime supply of eggs.

They found that, when the DNA of cells is damaged through chemotherapy or radiotherapy, two proteins called Puma and Noxa cause the eggs to die.
This causes many female cancer patients to become infertile.

"Increasing the understanding of the damage done and the potential for directly protecting the ovary and its contained oocytes has to be welcomed” Dr Jane Stewart, British Fertility Society

Low numbers of egg cells can also lead to a woman going through an early menopause.

When these cells were manipulated so they did not have the Puma protein, they did not die after being exposed to radiation therapy.

Prof Jeff Kerr, from Monash University, who worked on the study said: "This might ordinarily be cause for concern because you want damaged egg cells to die so as not to produce abnormal offspring."

But he added: "To our great surprise we found that not only did the cells survive being irradiated, they were able to repair the DNA damage they had sustained and could be ovulated and fertilised, producing healthy offspring.

"When the cells were also missing the Noxa protein, there was even better protection against radiation."

Prof Clare Scott, from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, who also worked on the lab and animal research, added: "It means that in the future, medications that block the function of Puma could be used to stop the death of egg cells in patients undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

"Our results suggest that this could maintain the fertility of these patients."

The researchers said that the discovery could also mean it would be possible to slow the loss of egg cells from the ovaries, thereby delaying early menopause.

Dr Jane Stewart of the Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life (the Life Science Centre), and a spokeswoman for the British Fertility Society, said: "Potential loss of fertility is an issue which worries many young women undergoing cancer treatment.

"Whilst it is not always an issue it can be unpredictable and the possibilities for effective fertility preservation in women remain limited.

"Increasing the understanding of the damage done and the potential for directly protecting the ovary and its contained oocytes has to be welcomed and - whilst this work may some way from being translated into clinical practice - it is encouraging as a possible starting point."

Beneath Contempt

It is well understood that in the profession of law and legal defence of someone charged with a criminal offence, a lawyer is charged to do his or her utmost on behalf of a client.  However, in some instances, the challenge to play the advocate on behalf of someone charged with a truly odious defence should have its moral limits, and yet remain well within all the parameters that justice demands.

An adult male who has furthermore a deep knowledge of what is immoral or otherwise, but is still capable of physically sexually attacking a child of ten, repeatedly raping her, threatening her if she informs of what he has done, is beyond reprehensible.  A lawyer, who despite all the incriminating evidence that is beyond dispute that his client committed this dreadful series of acts is himself despicable in defending that client.

All the more so when his defence of his client leads him to charge the child - now three years older, and still a child, having just reached her teen years - with mischief in claiming herself to have been raped by the man, a former custodian of the law himself, as an RCMP officer whose disgraceful conduct in other areas led him to be taken off active duty and held in suspension by the Force.  And whose total disintegration as a human being was completed when he murdered a policeman.

Now, it is the action of Kevin Gregson's lawyer, Craig Fleming, that can be called into question.  By arguing on behalf of his client that the girl - who was ten years old and who trusted him before she was repeatedly raped by Gregson - of giving false evidence though she implored him to leave her alone, and who suffered grievous physical harm above and beyond the psychological pain caused her - it is clear his manner reflects a total lack of humanity.

Doctors who examined the little girl after her claims of having been raped explained that they had never seen a more obvious physical manifestation of violence perpetrated against a child.  Gregson's DNA was recovered along with that of the little girl, and held as hard evidence in the nerve-numbing assaults.  Lawyer Craig Fleming seems to feel he has a trump card in the fact that the child cannot recall what her assaulter was wearing when he first raped her.

This man, in pursuit of his profession, and possibly a reputation as someone with a deviously clever mind has only succeeded in portraying himself as an ignorant lout dedicated not to justice but to advancing his career at the expense of a child's self-awareness and dignity.  He is clearly demonstrating his incapacity as a lawyer, as someone with a readily-shelved conscience.

 Just One Minute

There, almost time for the greatest show on Earth to commence.  London is prepared.  Or not.  Security is not assured.  Despite which the show will go on, must go on.  Thoughts should not linger overmuch on the potential of leaving themselves open for some kind of atrocious attack simply because they choose, all those prospective visitors to London for the Summer Olympics 2012, to be present, and not victims of some grisly plot.

London is rife with the presence of the country's military, called in to do their duty in the unfortunate absence of an expensive, but failed security apparatus.  The world's elite athletes are present and accounted for.  They are set to do their utmost on behalf of their country's pride in the athletic abilities of their young, talented athletes, reflecting glory in the achievement of their athletic prowess.

The Olympic Games is a venue for coming together and celebrating the precise and the perfect, the selection of outstanding, world-class athletes for recognition in gold, silver and bronze - and the playing of national anthems, and wrapping oneself in flags.  Nightmare scenarios of terrorists importing their hatred and bile into an atmosphere of general excitement and applause merely represent the caution of fear and suspicion.

Of course the slaughter that occurred during the 1972 Munich Olympics was an unfortunate aberration.

The conflict between countries, religions, ideologies and territorial imperatives that precipitated that dreadful act of infamy is still resonant, to be sure, but the world is prepared, Britain is prepared to counter any such possible plans to repeat such an atrocity.  Never fear.  We hope.

Jewish community in Munich protesting after the murders of the Israeli athletes, demanding the Games be halted, 1972. Photo by AP

The International Olympic Committee remained adamant.  It could not see its way clear to responding to the appeal of 100,000 signatures requesting an official 'minute of silence' in honour of the eleven Israeli athletes who were murdered by members of Palestinian Black September.  It just wasn't the right thing to do, they declared.  Some heads of state thought otherwise.  Many sports groups did, as well.

All the appeals from various sources for the IOC to remember the event with an official minute of silence was to no avail.  The 40 years that have passed saw the wives of the dead athletes approaching the IOC every four years to have them reconsider their refusal to observe a minute of silence.  It never seemed like too much to ask.  But it might prove embarrassing for example, to the Palestinian athletes present.

It's doubtful that any Arab country ever recommended that a minute of silence be observed in a display of neutral humanity.  In any event, although everyone had given up hope that anything would make a difference in changing their mind, the IOC did in fact, do a turnabout.  There was a minute of silence observed after all, following the comments of Jacques Rogge:

"I would like to start today's ceremony by honouring the memory of 11 Israeli Olympians who shared the ideals and have brought us together in this beautiful Olympic Village.  The 11 victims of the Munich tragedy believed in that vision.  They came to Munich in the spirit of peace and solidarity.  We owe it to them to keep that spirit alive and to remember them."

Well said, and gratefully accepted.  And we hope there will never be another occasion to mourn the death of fine young athletes wherever they emerge from, whichever country they represent.  Even though, as Mr. Rogge added, sport could unite, but not solve the problems of the world.

Cleared of Sex Assault

Looking enormously pleased exiting the Elgin Street courthouse, lawyer Paul Lewandowski alongside client Gazban Abdalrahman, who must be quite relieved - as the presiding judge dismissed the sex assault charges brought against him, both expressing satisfaction with the trial outcome. 

A rather chastened accuser must be experiencing feelings of puzzlement and insecurity at just about the same time.  She was led, through the courtroom interrogation to say that she might have invented the accusations she levelled against the one-time taxi driver, whose license was revoked and who is now anxious to resume a normal life, including his taxi driver license renewal.

If he is indeed innocent of the charges brought against him by a woman of 40 with her intellectual capacity stunted by a hereditary condition she was born with, one can only heave a sigh of congratulations for evading having been found guilty as charged.  One would wish that escape to reflect innocence, not the further manipulation of an uncertain mind of a Down Syndrome sufferer.

Who claimed, with no little amount of indignation that the driver had attempted to take advantage of her vulnerability.  She was offended at what she claimed was his unwanted touching and suggestion that they have sex, and later purported anger expressed against her for refusing him. 

Accusing her of racism, disliking him for being Arab.  Might someone with the mental capacity of his woman-child have been capable of inventing the story?

Complete with his rejoinder at her refusal and condemnation of him that he would have been perfectly within his rights to behave as she claims he had done with her, in his country of origin?  If so, what might have led her to such an accusation.  Down Syndrome people are generally portrayed as gentle and unassuming.

"I believe an Innocent man has been dragged through the mud for two years in a situation he had no control over.  At the end of the day people presume you are guilty on charges like this, and even though there is lip service to the presumption of innocence, at the end of the day he has had this stigma over his head for the last two years", explained lawyer Paul Lewandowski of his client's misfortune.

The camera installed for precautionary measures in the taxi cab took photographs continually; every 30 seconds when the vehicle was moving.  The woman had insisted that the assault through which she was afflicted was some six minutes in duration, although earlier testimony had declared her to be uncertain about the very concept of time.

In viewing the results of the photographs, nothing remotely amiss was determined.  The driver did move to restore the woman's seat belt for her when she had detached it.  And she testified that she was annoyed over that incident, confiding she preferred to do such things herself.  "He was ensuring my safety.  I guess I didn't want it.  I am deeply sorry for all of this happening", she said.

She later also commented that she had claimed "a lot of things I probably shouldn't have said", to the police.  With the conclusion of her testimony the Crown prosecutor felt it would be "unfair" to expect the jury to find Mr. Abdalrahman guilty of the allegations brought against his character, beyond a reasonable doubt.

And that reasonable doubt lies, for the most part, in the uncertainty the woman felt under the questioning she had undergone that led her to doubt her own memory.  Under questioning from Mr. Abdalrahman's lawyer, she agreed with him that she might have been in error in her interpretation of what the taxi driver was attempting to do when he made an effort to restore her seat belt back in position.

Confusing that action with an intentional move toward unwanted sexual touching.  People with Down Syndrome have a childlike reaction of trying to please others.  And it is certainly difficult to say whether this represented just such a case.  No one, perhaps, will ever know of a certainty.

But Mr. Abdalrahman is now free to resume his previous line of work, anxious to have his taxi license reinstated.  "He wants to get his life back.  His life has been in shambles", stated his lawyer.

Deadly Assault

"Sean Murphy was a man at the wrong place at the wrong time and he lost his life for no reason. 

"It was violence that was unprovoked, reckless, brutal and senseless."  Ontario Superior Court Justice Lynn Ratushny

Justice Ratushny also felt reason to call into question the sincerity of Mohamed Jama Yusuf's apology.  And then she sentenced him for "violently and callously", mortally attacking a 51-year-old man who was inebriated and unable to defend himself.

After Mohamed Jama Yusuf brutally beat 51-year-old Sean Murphy to insensibility he walked off, high-fiving a friend at the bar where he had been drinking.  He obviously proved his masculine prowess by kicking and stamping on the slighter Sean Murphy, a stranger to him, and too drunk to repel his attacker.

And then, later on, when Mr. Yusuf returned to Edmonton where he was from, he indulged in some bragging about "stomping an old man in Ottawa".

Mr. Murphy died in hospital three weeks after he was attacked just after 12:00 a.m. in the parking of a store near Merivale Road and Shillington Avenue.  He died of pneumonia occasioned by the brain injury caused by the viciousness of the injuries he had received, meted out to him by Mr. Yusuf who rejoiced in his "stomping an old man in Ottawa".

It was, declared Justice Ratushny "particularly repugnant" that one of Mr. Yusuf's friends, Abdulhakim Mohammed, took the opportunity of Mr. Murphy convulsing and unconscious to go through the man's pockets to take possession of whatever he could find there, after he'd been brutalized and fallen off his bicycle.

For punching a vulnerable cyclist in the head for no particular reason, then completing the assault by stomping and kicking him as he lay unconscious on the pavement, and ultimately causing his death as a result of the injuries sustained, Mohamed Jama Yusuf was sentenced to 7-1/2 years in prison.

A little less than 6-12 years remain for Mr. Yusuf to serve out his sentence, given credit for time already served.  That's the price that society enacts as a disciplinary measure for viciously taking an innocent life.