World News(Stuff to Discuss) Free For All

[Predator24]

Police seize 100,000 anti-Vladimir Putin books

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Copies of 'Putin. The Results. 10 Years on', written by opposition politicians Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov were "intended for participants of the forum", starting Thursday, according to Olga Kurnosova, head of the city's branch of the opposition United Civic Front, said.

The reasons for the seizure "are not very clear", she said.

More than 150 arrested at chess champion's anti-Kremlin protests
WEF 2009: Russia and China blame West for economic crisisThe book, which has a total print-run of one million copies, aims to "tell the truth about the real results of the leadership of Putin and the tandem", Mr Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, wrote in his blog on Monday.

Mr Putin served two terms as president from 2000 onwards before being elected as prime minister. He is still viewed as Russia's strongest political figure in a power tandem with his ally President Dmitry Medvedev.

Earlier this month, Mr Putin said that he supported opposition protests as long as they were within the law.

"Without a normal democratic development this country will have no future," he said at a televised meeting with prominent arts figures.

Mr Nemtsov presented the book about Mr Putin in Moscow on Monday. Last year he published a similar book about Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who won a libel case and forced him to retract a statement about corruption in the city hall.

[maxbailey]

Rapper plagues Greater Manchester Police with 999 calls

A rapper is tying up police emergency lines by bombarding a force with nuisance calls.

He dials 999 before rapping to operators at Greater Manchester Police - who are not allowed to cut him off.

Despite officers blocking more than 60 sim cards, the man has plagued them since January 2009.

In the past three months he has made 700 calls, some lasting up to five minutes, costing the force 1,000 a month.

Supt Karan Lee said his "inappropriate outbursts" are putting "lives at risk".

During many of the calls, the operator answers the phone to be met with a barrage of music and rants.

His rapping is difficult to decipher but during one call he started shouting about his citizen's rights.

So far officers have managed to establish that most of the calls are made from the Moss Side and Trafford areas.

The call handlers are tied up for several minutes trying to deal with him.

Call handling manager Jason Unsworth added: "You can never guess when this man is going to call up, and that's part of the problem.

'No laughing matter'

"With the World Cup on at the moment, it's an added pressure when he does call, because it can be any time of the day, and he can be on the phone for several minutes.

"He is causing us a big problem because of the sheer volume of calls he makes and the time wasted dealing with him.

"We have to treat each call as if it was a real emergency, so it's frustrating and worrying when we get time wasters preventing people with real emergencies coming through."

Clips of some of this man's nuisance calls have been released and police are urging anyone who recognises his voice, or who has information about who is responsible, to come forward.

Supt Lee added: "Nuisance calls are no laughing matter. I do not know what motivates this man has to keep calling but we need to stop this man's time-wasting calls before someone's life is put in jeopardy."

[MrGoutHimself]

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I thought they'd replaced 999 with 0118 999 881 999 119 725...3?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-QGX...eature=related

[maxbailey]

Vatican says Belgium raids 'worse than Communist era'

The Vatican has stepped up its criticism of raids by Belgian police investigating alleged child sex abuse, calling the detention of priests "serious and unbelievable".

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, said "there are no precedents, not even under the old communist regimes".

He claimed the priests were held for nine hours without eating or drinking.

Several buildings of the Belgium Church were searched on Thursday.

Bishops holding a meeting there were barred from leaving the premises for several hours.

"It was sequestration, a serious and unbelievable act," said Cardinal Bertone.

'Astonishment'

Police in Leuven seized nearly 500 files and a computer from the offices of a Church commission investigating allegations of sex abuse.

They also searched the Church's headquarters, the Brussels archdiocese in Mechelen, north of the Belgian capital.

Prosecutors have said the raids were over alleged "abuse of minors committed by a certain number of Church figures".

On Friday, the Vatican voiced "astonishment" at how the raids have been carried out, saying police had drilled holes in two archbishops' tombs.

The Vatican said the raids had led to the "violation of confidentiality of precisely those victims for whom the raids were carried out".

The Vatican has summoned the Belgian ambassador to the Holy See to voice their anger at the incident.

The Catholic Church in Belgium has apologised for its silence on abuse cases in the past.

[troup]

Lol, the audacity to complain about a day's inconvenience after god knows how many years of kiddy fiddling and protection of paedophiles by the Vatican.

[MrGoutHimself]

MaxBailey spotted in Scotland:

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[Predator24]

VA Hospital may have infected 1,800 veterans with HIV


VA hospital may have infected 1,800 veterans with HIVBy the CNN Wire StaffJune 30, 2010 6:10 a.m. EDT
Patients receiving dental work at a Missouri VA hospital may have been exposed to potentially life-threatening diseases.STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Missouri VA hospital sends letters to more than 1,800 patients at risk
Patients may be at risk to contract hepatitis and HIV
Congressman from Missouri angry and calling for investigation
Hospital says problem stems from handwashing dental instruments(CNN) -- A Missouri VA hospital is under fire because it may have exposed more than 1,800 veterans to life-threatening diseases such as hepatitis and HIV.

John Cochran VA Medical Center in St. Louis has recently mailed letters to 1,812 veterans telling them they could contract hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) after visiting the medical center for dental work, said Rep. Russ Carnahan.

Carnahan said Tuesday he is calling for a investigation into the issue and has sent a letter to President Obama about it.

"This is absolutely unacceptable," said Carnahan, a Democrat from Missouri. "No veteran who has served and risked their life for this great nation should have to worry about their personal safety when receiving much needed healthcare services from a Veterans Administration hospital."

The issue stems from a failure to clean dental instruments properly, the hospital told CNN affiliate KSDK.

KSDK: VA dental patients at risk of infection

Dr. Gina Michael, the association chief of staff at the hospital, told the affiliate that some dental technicians broke protocol by handwashing tools before putting them in cleaning machines.

The instruments were supposed to only be put in the cleaning machines, Michael said.

The handwashing started in February 2009 and went on until March of this year, the hospital told KSDK.

The hospital has set up a special clinic and education centers to help patients who may have been infected. However, Carnahan said he feels more should be done and those responsible should be disciplined.

"I can only imagine the horror and anger our veterans must be feeling after receiving this letter," Carnahan said. "They have every right to be angry. So am I."

This is not the first time this year a hospital has been in hot water for not following proper procedures.

In June, Palomar Hospital in San Diego, California, has sent certified letters to 3,400 patients who underwent colonoscopy and other similar procedures, informing the patients that there may be a potential of infection from items used and reused in the procedures.

Poison, not snake, killed Cleopatra, scholar says

(CNN) -- Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, died from drinking a mixture of poisons and not from a snake bite, a German historian said Wednesday.

The theory by Christoph Schaefer, a professor of ancient history at Trier University, challenges the common, centuries-old belief that Cleopatra committed suicide with the bite of an asp.

"It is certain that there was no cobra," Schaefer told CNN by phone Wednesday. An asp is a small venomous snake also called the Egyptian cobra.

Schaefer said he studied historic writings and consulted a toxicologist to develop the theory, which is due to be featured Wednesday on the German channel ZDF as part of a program on the Egyptian queen.

He also deduced that Cleopatra wouldn't have chosen to die by a snake bite because she was intent on suicide -- and a cobra, he said, is not always fatal.

When a person does die from a cobra bite, he said, "it doesn't go quickly -- it is a horrible death," in which it takes hours to die and the victim suffers paralysis to parts of their body, including the eyes.

Cleopatra died a "quiet and pain-free death," according to the Roman historian Cassius Dio, writing about 200 years after she died, Schaefer said.

Ancient texts also say Cleopatra's two assistants died with her, but that would be unlikely if she had died of a snake bite, the historian said. Also, temperatures in August -- when Cleopatra committed suicide in 30 B.C. -- would have been so high that a snake probably wouldn't have stayed still enough to bite, he said.

Ancient papyri show that Cleopatra knew about poisons, and one papyrus says she actually tested them, Schaefer said. Death by poison would make sense given the way in which Cleopatra wanted to die, and the fact that she died at the same time as her two handmaidens, he said.

Schaefer said he worked with German toxicologist Dietrich Mebs to determine which poisons Cleopatra might have used. They decided it was hemlock, mixed with wolfsbane and opium.

"Opium is quiet and with it, one can really fall into a deadly sleep," Schaefer said.

Asked why the tale of the asp has lingered for more than 2,000 years, he said most people simply believed the common story. A cobra can be fatal, and Cleopatra has historically been pictured with one, "so it makes sense" for people to believe that version, he said.

Many of the ancient depictions of Cleopatra with a cobra, however, were simply showing her reception in the afterlife, he said.

It was only in the 15th century that painters first started showing Cleopatra with an asp on her arm, and later, they painted the snake on her breast. In Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, she dies in the final scene from the bite of two asps -- one to her breast and one to her arm.

Cleopatra ruled Egypt from 51 to 30 B.C. and was the last pharaoh before Egypt became a Roman province.

She was Julius Caesar's mistress in Rome and, after he was assassinated, she returned to Egypt and began a relationship with Mark Antony, one of the three leaders of Rome after Caesar's death.

Cleopatra joined Antony at the Battle of Actium in Greece. He committed suicide when his forces were defeated, and Cleopatra then returned to Egypt to do the same.

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[TheSNakE]

Anybody who knows anything about cobras knew that. ^^^^

[gimmebeer]

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The Transition was designed as a "light sport" aircraft, the smallest kind of private aeroplane under FAA classification, with a maximum weight of 1,320lb. But the manufacturers found it impossible to fit the safety features - airbags, crumple zones and roll cage, for instance - that are required for road vehicles into that weight.

Uniquely, however, the FAA has granted the Transition an exemption - allowing it to be classified as a light sport aircraft despite being 120lb over the limit.

Light sport aircraft licences require just 20 hours' flying time, making them much easier to obtain than full private licences.

The two-seater Transition can use its front-wheel drive on roads at ordinary highway speeds, with wings folded, at a respectable 30 miles per gallon. Once it has arrived at a suitable take-off spot - an airport, or adequately sized piece of flat private land - it can fold down the wings, engage its rear-facing propellor, and take off. The folding wings are electrically powered.

Its cruising speed in the air is 115mph, it has a range of 460 miles, and it can carry 450lb. It requires a 1,700-foot (one-third of a mile) runway to take off and can fit in a standard garage.

Terrafugia says that one of the major advantages of the Transition over ordinary light aircraft is safety - in the event of inclement weather, it can simply drive home instead of either being grounded or flying in unsafe conditions.

The company says that 70 people have ordered the car, leaving a $10,000 (?6,650) deposit each. The car is expected to retail at $194,000 (?129,000). Deposits are held in escrow, meaning that should the company go bankrupt before delivery, the money will be refunded.