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Sunday, January 25, 2009

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh received a successful coronary artery bypass surgery and was recuperating well in the state-run All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Sunday.

Dr. Manmohan Singh is the 17th and current Prime Minister of the Republic of India. He also serves as the Union Minister for Finance, succeeding P. Chidambaram.

“The 76-year-old Prime Minister is doing fine now. He is conscious, stable, comfortable and is making rapid progress. He also met his family and congratulated all doctors. [His] ventilator has been taken off and he is breathing on his own. This is an important step,” said Dr. Ramakant Panda, one of the surgeons, after the 11-hour procedure on Saturday.

According to critical care specialist Dr. Vijay D’Silva, who has been entrusted with his post-operative care, Singh has been given a liquid diet since morning including a cup of tea, and was speaking to doctors after the procedure. “The way you [doctors] are taking care of me, you should also take care of other people”, Dr. D’Silva, who received his basic medical training in Nagpur and headed the ICU at Mumbai’s Jaslok and Lilavati Hospitals before he helped set up the ICU at the ultra-modern Asian Heart Institute, quoted Singh as saying.

“We started the operation at 7:45 am. The second operation always takes longer and makes it difficult to reach the heart. We did a total of five by-passes to clear multiple blockages in his arteries. Surgery was the long term answer since there were many blockages. We will take the PM out of the breathing machine in the next 2-3 hours and the PM should stay for three days in the ICU and then 4-5 days more in the hospital,” Drs. Panda and D’Silva explained.

Singh’s personal physician and AIIMS cardiac surgeon, Dr. K. S. Reddy, has predicted the PM will be allowed to attend to some official work in two weeks, to most of the duties in four weeks and will be able to resume office in six weeks. “PM was sent to the Operation Theatre at 6:40 am, surgery was done at 8:45 am and was concluded at 7:30 pm. PM was sent back to the ICU at 8:55 pm,” said Dr. Reddy.

“The team has brought about 20 boxes of special equipment with it. Earlier, Dr. K. S. Reddy had discussions with Dr. Panda in connection with the line of treatment to be followed,” the team of 11 doctors said.

The team of surgeons made a 6 to 7 inch incision along the scar that marked the PM’s 1990 bypass operation, and he was given five grafts. “The new grafts, all 3 mm long, will last the PM the rest of his life,” said Dr. Pradyot Kumar Rath from the Asian Heart Institute. “If the PM could have been so active with all the blockages, he can be even more active now,” Dr Panda said.

Singh underwent a coronary angiography at the AIIMS hospital on Tuesday and Wednesday and was discharged on Thursday. The tests results revealed multiple arterial blockages and Singh returned to hospital on Friday for pre-surgery tests.

External Minister Pranab Kumar Mukherjee, age 73, has been given the charge of Finance Ministry after he held meetings with Congress President Sonia Gandhi and then Prime Minister Singh. Mukherjee said he would meet the Prime Minister because he was going for treatment and when he was abroad, Singh was in hospital. “These are quite natural things. You should not be unnecessarily worried over and coming here in large numbers,” he said.

Mukherjee has also taken charge over some prime ministerial responsibilities, while Singh recovers, officials and media reports said. But no acting prime minister has been named while Singh is recuperating. Mukherjee will also preside over Cabinet meetings and will further handle coal, environment and forests, including information and broadcasting and finance portfolios.

Pranab Kumar Mukherjee, a native of West Bengal, India, is the Minister for External Affairs of India in the Manmohan Singh-led Government of India. A prominent leader of the Indian National Congress in the 14th Lok Sabha, he is known to be a competent party apparatchik, “a prominent Gandhi family loyalist who did not win a popular election until 2004”.

Singh, a diabetic, underwent a bypass surgery in Britain in 1990 and had an angioplasty in 2004 in Delhi in which stents were introduced in his arteries. He had earlier been operated for a benign enlarged prostate in 2007, and for nerve compression in both wrists in 2006 and cataract removal procedure last year, officials said.

The Congress Party, which leads the coalition Government, has said that he will remain Prime Minister if Congress and its allies win again. But Congress is reportedly planning to replace him, possibly within two years, with Rahul Gandhi, the 38-year-old son of Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born Congress leader. “Days are not far off for Rahul Gandhi to become Indian Prime Minister,” Mr Mukherjee said earlier this month.

Rahul is an Indian politician and member of the Parliament of India, representing the Amethi constituency. He is a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family, the most prominent political family in India. He is the son of current Italian-born Congress President Sonia Gandhi, and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1991. Gandhi was 14 years old when his grandmother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by her security guards. His great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, was the first Prime Minister of India, and his great-great-grandfather Motilal Nehru was a distinguished leader of the Indian independence movement.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Schools reopened on Monday in Sri Lanka and the government said they had arrested hundreds of people for participating in anti-Muslim riots. A state of emergency remained in effect in the island nation which had been gripped by widespread violence which started in the Central Province. At least two people died. At least eleven mosques were reported torched and 200 homes and businesses burned when the violence was at its peak.

Police reported 230 arrests, both for direct involvement and for spreading anti-Muslim hate speech on the internet. Police said to expect more arrests in coming days. Lifting of the state of emergency was expected, according to Al Jazeera, but had not occurred as of Monday. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe visited Kandy District over the weekend and told reporters victims will be compensated for damages.

Ever since a nearly three decade long civil war came to an end in 2009, relations between Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority and Tamil Sunni Muslim minority have remained tense, but largely peaceful until this month.

On March 4, in the village of Teldeniya a traffic accident escalated into a fight wherein a group of young Muslim men beat a Buddhist man, who later died, according to Al Jazeera. On March 5, hundreds of Sinhalese, whom local residents and officials said were from outside the city, took to the streets of Kandy. The mob targeted Muslims’ homes and businesses, setting several of them on fire. A Muslim man’s dead body was found inside one of the burned buildings.

By March 6, the Sri Lankan government had declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew on the region. The emergency declaration by President Maithripala Sirisena allowed the army to be called into action. Nevertheless, the unrest and violence spread to several towns surrounding Kandy. Government officials surmised the rioters were coordinating their attacks at specific locations through social media. Internet access was cut off for the province, and social media including Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber were blocked for the entire country.

“Technology created to bring people together is being used to pull people apart. Social media websites […] have been used to destroy families, lives and private property,” said Harin Fernando, the Minister of Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure, according to Sri Lanka Mirror.

On March 7, the curfew was expanded to be around-the-clock after, officials said, a hand grenade went off while a man was carrying it and killed him as well as injuring at least eleven other people. Police said they identified a hardline Buddhist nationalist who posted an anti-Muslim video, which was thought to be a source of incitement, on social media. Reports of violence spread as far as Weligama, which is on the southern coast of the island, some 240 km (150 miles) south of Kandy.

The next day, Thursday, mobs of rioters burned shops and threw Molotov cocktails at a mosque as religiously-fueled violence continued. The government arrested, by their account, Amith Weerasinghe, a hardline Buddhist-nationalist known for his anti-Muslim sentiments, as the suspected main agitator behind the violence.

Friday prayers at mosques were conducted under heavy police protection, without incident according to authorities. Also on Friday, hundreds of protesters, including Buddhist monks, gathered in the capital city Colombo and denounced the riots and violence. Saturday, President Sirisena announced an investigation of the violence in Kandy with a tribunal of retired judges. Kandy lifted curfew Saturday, but kept emergency powers in place.

Early Sunday morning, a restaurant in Anamaduwa, North Western Province was attacked despite heightened police presence, breaking a lull in violence since Thursday. Police arrested seven suspects in connection with the predawn petrol bomb attack on the restaurant. Meanwhile, in the Central Province, where the violence began over a week ago, the Chief Minister Sarath Ekanayake announced schools would reopen Monday after being closed during the violence last week.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

A report published today by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) finds that, in many cases, England’s home care system breaches the human rights of the elderly it is supposed to serve. The Close to home: older people and human rights in home care report is the result of a twelve-month investigation into care generally provided by local authorities.

Approximately half of those receiving home care, plus friends and family, providing evidence to the inquiry were satisfied with the quality of care provided. However, the report stresses that there are “systemic problems” arising from “a failure to apply a human rights approach to home care provision”. The report asserts that it is generally not the fault of individuals providing care, but serious problems exist as local authorities seem unaware of their obligations under the Human Rights Act and fail to commission, procure, and monitor care accordingly.

The report says articles two, three and eight of the European Convention on Human Rights are frequently being breached. These, respectively, cover an individual’s right to life, protection from inhumane and degrading treatment, and respect for dignity and personal independence. Criticisms include that care is not provided in a common-sense manner, and funding of care for the elderly is at lower levels than for younger people with similar problems and needs.

The EHRC’s investigation highlights a range of recurring complaints and attempts to identify the underlying causes; cost is repeatedly mentioned, with use of the private-sector leading to some local authorities offering a “one size fits all” service leaving many elderly feeling they are “a task to be undertaken” and have “little or no choice” as to help received, or when care workers visit. A failure to invest in care workers is noted, with significant responsibility and the wide range of skills required being rewarded with low pay and status; this, the report states, adversely impacts staff retention and, a high turnover of care workers can put the security of care recipients at-risk.

Within the wider investigation, a commissioned independent social report by The Arndale Centre conducted in-depth interviews with a cross-section of 40 elderly individuals receiving home care. As-stressed in the report, those selected were not on the basis of good, or bad, experiences with their – mainly local authority-provided – care. It highlights a widespread feeling amongst those interviewed that they are treated “like a number”, and that aspects of the care provided lead to, or fail to resolve, feelings of social isolation.

The Manchester-based Arndale Centre report concludes that, “[t]he general picture is of a wider home care system in which older people are noteffectively involved: which they do not understand, and which does not often make the extra effort required to involve them in ways tailored to their state of health and other needs”.

A recurring theme in the responses of those interviewed is the social isolation that their home care is not adequately addressing. One male interviewee in his seventies who previously used a scooter to get about said in his interview, “I haven’t been out of the house now for about four weeks. I daren’t. The last time I went out on the scooter I hit the kerb and it frightened the living daylights out of me.” Another, an 85-year-old woman who lives alone, expressed sadness at her inability to do normal things, “I would love to go to town to do some shopping. I haven’t been to town for about two years… Wander round the town and have a cup of tea… I’d love that.”

The social isolation many elderly experience was summed up neatly by another woman in her eighties in her interview: “When you go now, I will maybe not talk to anybody till tomorrow; maybe the whole of tomorrow nobody to talk [to]… face to face. Nobody will knock on that door, that is it, a life of isolation.”

The EHRC, having commissioned this report in the face of funding changes and reform of the care system, intends to press for legislative changes to ensure those receiving care at home are given the same protections under the Human Rights Act as those in residential care. In the conclusions of their report they offer to work with, and support, local authorities in understanding and delivering care that respects peoples’ rights and dignity; and, recommend better guidance as to the choices available to the elderly, and their families, be made available.

Friday, June 24, 2005

The total number of people killed and injured by police officers driving cars in the course of their duties in England and Wales has risen by 61% in just one year.

The figures were released by Home Office minister Hazel Blears in a written answer to a question from Lynne Featherstone, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green in London.

They show that in 2002-2003, a total of 22 people were killed and 1,131 were injured.

But in 2003-2004, the number killed has increased to 31, with more than 2,000 injured, of which 138 were serious.

All the people killed or injured were involved in road traffic collisions with police vehicles responding to emergency calls, or those involved in high-speed pursuits.

The police force with the worst record for deaths is Greater Manchester Police. Four people died in collisions involving GMP vehicles in 2002-2003, but the number increased to 6 the following year. However, the number injured dropped from 74 to 56 over the same period.

The safest force was Dyfed-Powys Police, who did not kill or injure anyone in both years. The force covers a rural area of Wales, with a low population density.

Independent Police Complaints Commission Chair Nick Hardwick issued a statement in response to the figures.

Training and risk assessment are the keys to reducing deaths and serious injuries involving police drivers”, he said.

“We all accept that in emergencies police officers have to speed and go through red lights but they must not take unacceptable risks, either for themselves or the public.”

“The IPCC will continue to manage or independently investigate the most serious collisions involving police driving. We are ensuring that the lessons learned will benefit the police service.”

Monday, February 6, 2006

The search engine Google announced the removal of the official German BMW web site from its search results today. Google is reported to have removed the website due to the use of a trick to raise its website ratings in the search engine’s results.

The online version of Forbes magazine reported that the German word for used car, Gebrauchtwagen, appeared 42 times in a doorway web page created by the German car manufacturer. Doorway web pages contain many keywords designed to attract search robots. The page presented to Google’s robot for indexing was significantly different from the page presented to the site’s visitors.

According to a recent blog post by Matt Cutts, one of Google’s software engineers, this technique is “a violation of our webmaster quality guidelines.” These guidelines encourage webmasters to “avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings.”

BMW reacted to the measure by claiming that it had no intention of manipulating the search results, but instead used the doorway pages with the objective of “offering a better service” to those looking for used cars.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

On the occasion of President Bush’s commencement speech at the United States Coast Guard Academy on Wednesday, hundreds of protesters gathered in New London, Connecticut.

The peaceful demonstration lasted from approximately 7:00 a.m. to noon. Most protesters, such as the large contingent from the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, were there to push for an immediate end to the Iraq War. Others, including a number of robed professors from nearby universities, carried signs focused on the Bush Administration‘s surveillance programs and science and environmental policies.

Across the street from the main group, a smaller number of counter-protesters voiced support for the war and denounced the protesters’ for what they considered lack of support for the troops.

Throughout the demonstrations at the corners of Mohegan Avenue and Williams Street, protesters and counter-protesters yelled at each other, separated by police and K-9 units. The protesters had a roster of speakers and a central loudspeaker system, while several counter-protesters had hand-held loudspeakers and bullhorns.

The crowd caught a brief glimpse of President Bush’s motorcade just before 11:00 a.m., but was otherwise well outside the range of the college’s graduation activities. Several television vans were on site and numerous reporters covered the demonstrations.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Ian Narev, the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, this morning “unreservedly” apologised to clients who lost money in a scandal involving the bank’s financial planning services arm.

Last week, a Senate enquiry found financial advisers from the Commonwealth Bank had made high-risk investments of clients’ money without the clients’ permission, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars lost. The Senate enquiry called for a Royal Commission into the bank, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Mr Narev stated the bank’s performance in providing financial advice was “unacceptable”, and the bank was launching a scheme to compensate clients who lost money due to the planners’ actions.

In a statement Mr Narev said, “Poor advice provided by some of our advisers between 2003 and 2012 caused financial loss and distress and I am truly sorry for that. […] There have been changes in management, structure and culture. We have also invested in new systems, implemented new processes, enhanced adviser supervision and improved training.”

An investigation by Fairfax Media instigated the Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning division and ASIC.

Whistleblower Jeff Morris, who reported the misconduct of the bank to ASIC six years ago, said in an article for The Sydney Morning Herald that neither the bank nor ASIC should be in control of the compensation program.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

It can be difficult to be John Reed.

Christopher Hitchens called him a “Bin Ladenist” and Cathy Young editorialized in The Boston Globe that he “blames the victims of terrorism” when he puts out a novel like Snowball’s Chance, a biting send-up of George Orwell‘s Animal Farm which he was inspired to write after the terrorist attacks on September 11. “The clear references to 9/11 in the apocalyptic ending can only bring Orwell’s name into disrepute in the U.S.,” wrote William Hamilton, the British literary executor of the Orwell estate. That process had already begun: it was revealed Orwell gave the British Foreign Office a list of people he suspected of being “crypto-Communists and fellow travelers,” labeling some of them as Jews and homosexuals. “I really wanted to explode that book,” Reed told The New York Times. “I wanted to completely undermine it.”

Is this man who wants to blow up the classic literary canon taught to children in schools a menace, or a messiah? David Shankbone went to interview him for Wikinews and found that, as often is the case, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

Reed is electrified by the changes that surround him that channel through a lens of inspiration wrought by his children. “The kids have made me a better writer,” Reed said. In his new untitled work, which he calls a “new play by William Shakespeare,” he takes lines from The Bard‘s classics to form an original tragedy. He began it in 2003, but only with the birth of his children could he finish it. “I didn’t understand the characters who had children. I didn’t really understand them. And once I had had kids, I could approach them differently.”

Taking the old to make it new is a theme in his work and in his world view. Reed foresees new narrative forms being born, Biblical epics that will be played out across print and electronic mediums. He is pulled forward by revolutions of the past, a search for a spiritual sensibility, and a desire to locate himself in the process.

Below is David Shankbone’s conversation with novelist John Reed.