Continue reading →
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
11 Pakistani teachers kidnapped during polio campaign released: officials [ Adv3nturTrav3l ]
By Jibran Ahmed
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Militants released on Tuesday 11 teachers who had been kidnapped in Pakistan’s lawless northwest during a polio vaccination campaign last week, local officials said.
The teachers were seized by Islamist militants on November 21 from a school in the Khyber tribal agency, one of the semi autonomous tribal areas along border with Afghanistan.
They were abducted just after a team giving polio vaccinations had left the school and the militants may have mistaken them for the polio team, Khyber official Niaz Ahmad Khan said.
They were moved to an area controlled by militant leader Mangal Bagh and his Taliban-affiliated group, Lashkar-e-Islam.
Khan said a group of tribal elders, known as a jirga, was sent to secure the teachers’ release.
“The militants cooperated with the jirga members and freed all the abducted…teachers,” said Khan.
A tribal elder, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the militants freed the teachers on condition the government stop sending polio teams to the area.
Gunmen frequently attack polio vaccination workers, accusing them of being Western spies and part of a plot to sterilize Muslims.
A global eradication campaign has reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent in the last three decades, but it remains endemic in Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The disease is highly infectious and can cause irreversible paralysis.
(Refiles to amend byline)
(Editing by Dylan Welch and Ron Popeski)
- Politics & Government
- Unrest, Conflicts & War
- polio vaccination
Surgically Implanted Eyeball Jewelry Is the New Piercing [ Adv3nturTrav3l ]
Lucy Luckayanko was at a night club in New York City when a man approached her and said, “Oh, your eye is so shiny!”
“Yeah,” the 25-year-old blonde responded in her native Russian accent. “I’ve got platinum in my eye.”The platinum heart glimmers from the corner of Luckayanko’s right eye every time she looks up, allowing the light to catch it away from the shade of her long lashes.
Dr. Emil Chynn surgically implanted the eye jewelry a few weeks ago on Park Avenue in Manhattan for $ 3,000 as local news cameras captured the moment. Chynn operated in front of a floor-to-ceiling glass window so passersby could watch from the street. But Luckayanko didn’t mind. Chynn said he’d given her a Valium and some laughing gas to calm her nerves.
“You don’t feel anything,” she said.
Chynn, whose bread and butter is laser vision correction, used a laser to make a slit in the thin membrane covering the white of Luckayanko’s eye and slipped the curved silvery heart into its pocket. The slit was so tiny it didn’t even need stitches, he said.
Luckayanko said it felt as if something was in her eye the first few days, but then she caught herself.
“I guess it is something in my eye,” she said, with a smile and a surgically implanted twinkle.
Hers was the first surgery of its kind in New York, and four other people have contacted Chynn to get eye jewelry, too.
Chynn is no stranger to being in the news. He made headlines a few years ago for being the “creepy Craigslist doctor” after he posted an ad for a rent-free apartment in Manhattan available to a woman who would walk on his back for an hour a day, feed him and help him find a wife. His wife search also went viral when an email to a matchmaker got into the wrong hands, which he talks about on his practice’s website.
He sat down next to Luckayanko for an interview with ABCNews.com in the basement of his office as broken fluorescent lights blinked off and on every so often in another room full of surgical supplies. Chynn’s patient coordinator, Tarek Elnicklawy, called this room “the dungeon.”
After telling Luckayanko to look up, to show off the tiny silver heart — which nearly blends into the white of her eye — Chynn explained that he’d been looking for a patient to get the first SafeSight Eye Jewelry for a number of years. Luckayanko was perfect, he said.
“She’s Russian. She’s over the top,” he said, adding that he’s had a few Russian girlfriends and claiming matter-of-factly that they would gladly “not eat” to be able to afford designer dresses.
Luckayanko smiled but said nothing.
Chynn said he was hoping for someone who would be attractive enough for the media to take an interest in. He said he hoped to perform the eye jewelry surgery on a celebrity on live television to prove it was safe.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology disagreed, warning consumers to avoid the surgery, because even though it is more common in Europe, it isn’t approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“The American Academy of Ophthalmology has not identified sufficient evidence to support the safety or therapeutic value of this procedure,” the academy said in a statement, warning of complications including blindness from ocular infection or bleeding, bleeding beneath the conjunctiva, perforation of the eye and conjunctivitis.
“Tell these people I’m not going to lose my eyeball,” Luckayanko said.
“It’s not possible,” Chynn said. “My life would be better if people listened to me.”
Upstairs, patients sit wearing blue surgical bonnets and foot covers in a small waiting room with paper lanterns and velvety curtains. Their chairs were arranged around a large, flat-screen television filled with a real-time eyeball on it as Chynn performed his laser eye surgeries. The sound of the laser fills the waiting room with noises that resemble something between an old-fashioned toy gun and the Wheel of Fortune hitting the plastic rungs as it spins.
Luckayanko said she likes the eye jewelry because it’s “elegant” and only visible to the people she wants to be close to. She said she didn’t have any tattoos because she didn’t like that they’re permanent. The eye jewelry is removable.
“Don’t take a steak knife and remove it yourself,” Chynn said.
But it hasn’t been all positive attention for Luckayanko since a post-op photo of her eyeball went viral and commenters started criticizing her for getting the implant.
“I figure out I need plastic surgery,” she said with a hint of sarcasm about what commenters have said about her. “I feel they can say whatever.”
Luckayanko said she came to the United States five years ago and hopes to become a famous graphic designer. She said the negative attention she received this month made her empathize with Kim Kardashian. When she feels down, she said she watches Miley Cyrus videos to remind herself that Cyrus is still happy despite the backlash from Cyrus’ twerking and other scandalous behavior.
“What did she do?” Chynn asked the group.
“She kept on doing it,” Elnicklawy said.
- Health
- Eye Care
Xbox One does carry Logitech Harmony remote compatibility [ Adv3nturTrav3l ]
By Jake Smith | Pocket-lint –
Logitech announced its line of all-in-one Harmony remotes has been updated with added ability to control the brand-spankin’-new Xbox One. The company revealed on its blog it has been working with Microsoft to ensure compatibility with the new console.
“We’ve worked hard with Microsoft to make sure your Harmony remote would be compatible on day one,” Logitech wrote.
The My Harmony website has been updated to reflect support for the Xbox One, and this where you can add the Xbox One to your Logitech Harmony remote. Logitech didn’t specify any specific models of the Harmony, so we can only assume most, if not all, are supported.
Harmony support for the Xbox One is much smoother than past consoles, now Logitech and Microsoft are working directly together. The Xbox 360 was controlled via IR Sensor, and the PS3 and Wii were controlled over Bluetooth. It’s not clear if IR is the way communication is done on the Xbox One, but it seems a bit more streamlined nonetheless.
Missing on the Xbox One is a media remote like the Xbox 360. A remote from Logitech may be the best route, for now. It won’t help you kill zombies on Call of Duty, but should help when browsing around the Xbox One’s extensive app list or watching the latest on Netflix.
© copyright Pocket-lint 2013
At least 1 in Japan gets HIV from donated blood [ Adv3nturTrav3l ]
TOKYO (AP) — At least one person in Japan has been infected with HIV from a blood transfusion.
A spokesman for the Japanese Red Cross Society said Tuesday that a male donor tested positive for HIV this month.
Red Cross spokesman Akihiko Nakano says the man had also donated blood earlier this year, and two people had received the blood.
Results for the second person have not come out yet.
Japan had a similar case in 2003 with one transfusion recipient testing positive.
All donated blood is screened, but the tests are not foolproof, especially when the infection is in its early stages.
About 460 to 470 people test positive for HIV in Japan annually.
- Disease & Medical Conditions
- Health
- Japan
- blood transfusion
- Japanese Red Cross Society
- HIV
11 Pakistani teachers kidnapped during polio campaign released: officials [ Adv3nturTrav3l ]
By Mushtaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Militants released on Tuesday 11 teachers who had been kidnapped in Pakistan’s lawless northwest during a polio vaccination campaign last week, local officials said.
The teachers were seized by Islamist militants on November 21 from a school in the Khyber tribal agency, one of the semi autonomous tribal areas along border with Afghanistan.
They were abducted just after a team giving polio vaccinations had left the school and the militants may have mistaken them for the polio team, Khyber official Niaz Ahmad Khan said.
They were moved to an area controlled by militant leader Mangal Bagh and his Taliban-affiliated group, Lashkar-e-Islam.
Khan said a group of tribal elders, known as a jirga, was sent to secure the teachers’ release.
“The militants cooperated with the jirga members and freed all the abducted…teachers,” said Khan.
A tribal elder, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the militants freed the teachers on condition the government stop sending polio teams to the area.
Gunmen frequently attack polio vaccination workers, accusing them of being Western spies and part of a plot to sterilize Muslims.
A global eradication campaign has reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent in the last three decades, but it remains endemic in Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The disease is highly infectious and can cause irreversible paralysis.
(Editing by Dylan Welch and Ron Popeski)
- Politics & Government
- Unrest, Conflicts & War
- polio vaccination
Mick Jagger About to Become a Great-Grandfather [ Adv3nturTrav3l ]
New family member expected early next year
Mick Jagger is about to hit a new milestone few rockers likely hold in sight: he’s going to be a great-grandfather. According to the Guardian, Jagger’s daughter Jade says that her own 21-year-old daughter Assisi is due to give birth in early 2014.
The 70-year-old Rolling Stones frontman has seven children and four grandchildren. Jade Jagger told the paper that the new milestone doesn’t seem like such a huge deal to him now. “I think making Mick a grandfather obviously had a big impact whereas, now, making him a great-grandfather is no longer particularly fascinating,” she said. “My dad has always been great at keeping the family together and having those important moments – Christmas parties, his birthday. We’ll be spending New Year’s Eve together, nearly all of us [in Mustique].”
Where Do the Rolling Stones Rank on Our 100 Greatest Artists List?
Jagger and the Rolling Stones hit another rare rock n’ roll milestone earlier this year as they celebrated 50 years together as a band. After marking the occasion with their 50 and Counting tour of North America and performing for the first time at the Glastonbury festival in England, they’re set to hit the road yet again. Earlier this week, they announced that they’ll be heading to Adelaide, Australia on March 22nd, 2014, with more Australia and New Zealand dates in the works.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
