When the film star was asked about reports he was now blacklisted, Yun-Fat replied, “I’ll just make less [films in China] then.”
Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-Fat, known to the West mainly through the 2000 blockbuster film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” is reportedly now banned from making movies in China.
Recently, the actor met with students protesting the communist government of China which has recently taken over control of Hong Kong.
After meeting with students, he gave public comments in which he did not support the new government:
“I’ve met the residents, the students. They are very brave, and it’s touching to see that they’re fighting for what they want. The students are reasonable. If the government can come up with a solution that the citizens or students are satisfied with, I believe the crisis will end,” Yun-Fat told Apple Daily.
Commenting on the use of teargas by police at the demonstrations, he said, “When the government uses violent measures on students, it’s a turn-off for the people of Hong Kong. I don’t wish to see anyone getting hurt.”
Other Hong Kong stars also commented publicly on the issue, siding with protesters, but have not been reported to be blacklisted, including Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu-wai.
Lau said there should be “no tear gas, no violence, no abuse,” and Leung said, “I support all the people of Hong Kong who peacefully ask for what they want and protest the government’s use of excessive force against people who have gathered peacefully, and hope the government can quickly arrange for sincere talks with the people.”
Others stars, including Hong Kong-born Jackie Chan, supported Beijing in aggressively quelling the demonstrations.
Chan expressed concern about the cost of the protests in dollars, advocating a “return to rationality,” echoing comments he’d made years earlier that “there should be rules to determine what people can protest about and on what issues they can’t protest about,” and that “Chinese people need to be controlled.”
Tuberculosis, the world’s second most deadly infectious disease after AIDS and a disease that killed 1.5 million people last year, has an increased infection rate of 300 percent for sufferers of diabetes, which killed 3 million people last year. The two pose a “looming” threat of a world-wide co-epidemic, warned a report by the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease and the World Diabetes Foundation (UNION). The report was presented at the 45th World Conference on Lung Health in Barcelona Wednesday.
“Diabetes is fueling the spread of TB,” wrote UNION.
“This is largely because diabetes rates are skyrocketing around the world, and having diabetes increases the risk that a person will become sick with TB.”
Health professionals have noted a growing link between the two diseases, but the mechanisms are not fully understood.
“Successfully addressing TB-diabetes therefore requires a coordinated response to both diseases at all levels of the health system.”
Worldwide, 347 million people have diabedes, and nine million people contract TB per year. Three million diabedes die per year, while 1.5 million people died of TB last year. The numbers are on the increase, as drug-resistant and multidrug-resistant TB are increasingly becomming the common forms of the disease.
The report by the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease and the World Diabetes Foundation also found that more people live with a combination of TB and diabedes than TB and AIDS–a more commonly-known disease combination, and one which has allowed TB to spread quickly. Of those people infected with HIV, one-fourth die of TB.
The report, the authors wrote, was “a call to action to address this threat before it takes a larger toll in death and disability as well as economic impact–and before we see the gains made against TB in the past decade rolled back by diabetes.
“TB-diabetes is a looming co-epidemic that we need to address now, before it has a chance to take root in countries and cause sickness and death on a large scale.”
Once the world’s fourth-largest inland body of water, the Aral Sea is on the verge of extinction. Uzbekistan, which shares the lake with Kazakhstan, is calling on the international community to deal with the environmental catastrophe.
The Aral Sea is considered by some experts to be the worst man-made ecological catastrophe in history. The sea has been desiccated by Soviet irrigation projects that have used the lake’s water indiscriminately since the 1960s.
Currently, the lake is reduced to a series of small water bodies, representing 10 percent of the original Aral Sea. The southern basin has completely evaporated.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov called for aid at an international conference of experts and donors.
“The countries of the region do not have sufficient funds and logistical means to overcome the environmental, socio-economic and humanitarian his appeal,” stated Karimov.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently commented on the problem, “Today the Aral Sea is on the verge of extinction. This loss will affect the lives of millions of people in Uzbekistan and abroad.”
Notable among the humanitarian issues associated with the loss of the lake is massive amounts of pesticide-contaminated dust which are being blown from the seabed, affecting health.
International donors have recently pledge $3 billion towards mitigating the consequences of the Aral Sea catastrophe.
The money was raised at a fundraiser hosted by Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov. The names of donors and the programs that would be funded were not offered.
The $3 billion is additional to the nearly $9 billion reported to have been donated since 2011.
Al-Aqsa complex, a site holy to Muslims and Jews and the location of Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque, was reopened hours after the site was closed due to security fears after the shooting of a Jewish activist–during which interval Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas had announced that the closure was a “declaration of war.”
“This dangerous Israeli escalation is a declaration of war on the Palestinian people and its sacred places and on the Arab and Islamic nation,” said Abbas, responding to the closure of the third-holiest site in Islam.
“We hold the Israeli government responsible for this dangerous escalation in Jerusalem that has reached its peak through the closure of the Al-Aqsa mosque this morning.
“This decision is a dangerous act and a blatant challenge that will lead to more tension and instability and will create a negative and dangerous atmosphere.
“The state of Palestine will take all legal measures to hold Israel accountable and to stop these ongoing attacks.”
Hours after the closure, the site was reopened, with restrictions.
“It was decided to restore [the compound] to normal… effective immediately,” stated police spokeswoman Luba Samri.
Entry was still restricted for men. Only men over 50 were admitted because of fears of unrest at Friday’s midday prayers. There were no restrictions on female Muslims.
After Abbas’ statements, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu increased police numbers, saying, “I have ordered a significant increase in forces as well as in means (available to them) so we can both ensure security in Jerusalem and also maintain the status quo in the holy places.”
Thursday, American-born ultranationalist activist Yehuda Glick was shot by a gunman on a motorbike as he was leaving a conference. Glick has been an advocate for greater Jewish access to the Al-Aqsa complex.
Glick is currently in hospital in serious condition. The suspect of the shooting died after opening fire on police who had surrounded his home later Thursday.
One day before politicians were to vote on a controversial new law, riots erupted in the capital of Burkina Faso. The parliament and government party headquarters were set on fire, the national television headquarters was attacked, cars were burned, and the airport was closed. Five people so far have died in the sudden chaos.
Ouagadougou’s National Assembly building was stormed by hundreds of Burkinabe, who then moved on to the presidential palace, but were held back by the presidential guard, who fired warning shots into the air.
Reportedly, many Burkinabe soldiers have joined the protests, including the nation’s former defence minister, General Kouame Lougue.
Opposition leader Zephirin Diabre has called for the military to side with “the people.”
“October 30 is Burkina Faso’s Black Spring, like the Arab Spring,” an official of the opposition Movement of People for Progress, Emile Pargui Pare, was quoted.
The riots broke out just one day before national politicians were scheduled to vote on a controversial law that would allow Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Compaore to run for election next year.
The legislation would allow the president to extend his 27-year rule of the county, which began in 1987 as the result of a coup.
Compare has been re-elected four times. The first two terms were seven years each, and the second two terms were five years each. Constitutional limits on the office were brought in during 2005.
The new legislation could allow Compare to retain power for another 15 years.
Reacting to the riots, Compaore declared a state of emergency and dissolved the government. The president also released a statement saying he was ready to talk with opposition.
The government of Burkina Faso announced that the vote on the legislation had been called off, but did not specifiy whether this was a cancellation or postponement to the vote.
The world’s first artificial cow’s milk is being developed by synthetic dairy start up Muufri (“Moo-free”)–a team of Californian vegan bioengineers–and is set to hit the market next year.
The artificial milk, nicknamed “out-of-body udder” milk, produces milk that has the same taste and health benefits as regular milk, but is vegan friendly.
“If we want the world to change its diet from a product that isn’t sustainable to something that is, it has to be identical [to], or better than, the original product,” said Perumal Gandhi, one of the two bioengineers responsible for the project. “The world will not switch from milk from a cow to the plant-based milks. But if our cow-less milk is identical and priced right, they just might.”
The inspiration for Muufri, according to the team, was a perceived need to reduce overcrowded dairy barns, in which cows are often poorly treated and are fed hormones and antibiotics. The barns are also responsible for three percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN.
The market might have a place for a milk alternative that is more nutritious than soy, rice and almond milk, and can be made into ice cream with the same flavor of regular ice cream, the Muufri team said.
Not only that: Because Muufri will not contain bacteria like regular milk does, it will have a much longer shelf-life.
Synthesizing cow’s milk is a relatively simple process. Cow’s milk has only 20 components, and is 87 percent water. Muufri will contain six proteins for structure, and eight fatty acids for flavor.
Similar to insulin production, DNA extracted from dairy cows is inserted into yeast cells. The cells will then be grown in industrial-sized culture into milk for harvesting.
“Although the proteins in Muufri milk come from yeast, the fats come from vegetables and are tweaked at the molecular level to mirror the structure and flavour of milk fats,” said National Geographic’s Linda Qui of the new product. “Minerals, like calcium and potassium, and sugars are purchased separately and added to the mix. Once the composition is fine-tuned, the ingredients emulse naturally into milk.” Artificial milk could potentially be even better for you than regular milk.
When Muufri hits the shelves next year, it will be more expensive than regular milk, but if sales allow the company to scale up, prices will decrease, the team said.
Britain is “under siege” from immigration, according to UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon. The cause is EU migrants coming to the UK from other parts of the EU, competing for jobs and claiming benefits.
“In some areas of the UK, down the east coast, towns do feel under siege, (with) large numbers of migrant workers and people claiming benefits,” Fallon said in an interview.
“We are looking at changing that to make sure there is some control. We are fully entitled to say this is making a difference to us, that now needs to be dealt with.”
The immigration issue has risen to the fore of UK politics recently. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party, feeling mounting electoral pressure from the anti-EU UK Independence Party in the face of next year’s general election, has promised the UK public a referendum by 2017 on whether to maintain EU membership.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Cameron, however, not to “tamper with the fundamental principles of free movement in the EU.” Such interference would not be tolerated by Britain’s EU partners, Merkel said.
“The Germans haven’t seen our proposals yet and we haven’t seen our proposals yet, and that’s still being worked on at the moment to see what we can do to prevent whole towns and communities being swamped by huge numbers of migrants,” Fallon said.
Currently, under EU regulations, citizens of most EU countries are guaranteed the right to live and work in any EU country.
Fox News Channel (FNC) will reveal the identity of the killer of Osama bin Laden in an upcoming two-part documentary.
The program will be hosted by Fox’s Washington correspondent Peter Doocy, and will feature an interview with “The Shooter,” as Fox is referring to the US Navy SEAL who shot dead Osama bin Laden in May 2011 in Pakistan.
The SEAL “will share his story of training to be a member of America’s elite fighting force and explain his involvement in Operation Neptune Spear, the mission that killed Bin Laden,” according to FNC. “The documentary will provide an extensive, first-hand account of the mission, including the unexpected crash of one of the helicopters that night and why SEAL Team 6 feared for their lives.
“It will also touch upon what was taking place inside the terrorist compound while President Obama and his cabinet watched from the White House.”
“The Shooter” will offer never before shared details, Fox has said, including his “experience in confronting Bin Laden, his description of the terrorist leader’s final moments as well as what happened when he took his last breath.”
The documentary will also show a secret ceremony at New York’s National September 11 Memorial Museum, at which event “The Shooter” donated the shirt he was wearing during the 2011 mission.
“The Man Who Killed Usama Bin Laden” (sic) will air on Fox News Nov. 11 and 12 at 10 p.m.
In Ethiopia’s western Gambella region, 540 people–mostly ethnic Amhara–were killed during a massacre that began in the town of Meti, Godere Zone.
The massacre took place September 10, and was not reported until Voice of America’s (VOA) Amharic Service covered the killings last week.
The massacre began after the Ethiopian government began to forcefully evict Mezenger people from their ancestral land as part of a plan to redistribute the land to recently retired TPLF Generals.
In the government program, the land is handed over to the retired servicemen for “investment” purposes. The effect of the plan has included an illegal campaign of selling lands, accompanied by the arrival of hundreds of “Tirgrayans’ as ‘workers’ for the TPLF land developers.
Plans for the world’s tallest twin towers have been unveiled by Emaar Properties in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The oil-rich Persian Gulf city will construct the towers as part of its Dubai Creek Harbour project.
The twin towers will be the centerpiece of the project, and will be developed in three phases by Dubai Holding. The design of the towers resembles two rocket launchers.
“The story of Dubai and the history of the creek are intertwined, it really tells us where it came from and which way we’re going,” said Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar, the company currently building Dubailand and Dubai World Central. “This is the greatest spot in the world and it deserves something creative and special.”
“Planned on an open site, Dubai Creek Harbour will combine the city with the natural contours of the creek,” Emaar said in a statement. “With no legacy ties to infrastructure, this new Dubai will leapfrog many of the world’s other global cities. The master plan is an order of magnitude larger than Downtown Dubai and will support its commercial and cultural development.”
The start date for the construction of the twin towers has not been decided.
“When planning a project like this, you can’t look at 2015,” said Alabbar. “It’s about the fundamentals of the city.”
But the plan has not been impeded by the recent worldwide financial crisis which reached Dubai around 2010.
“I think all the stakeholders in Dubai in this business learnt their lessons and they have matured,” said Alabbar. “What it boils down to is supply and demand.”
The government of Ethiopia is guilty of ethnically targeted human rights violations, according to Amnesty International. The violence is directed against Ethiopia’s largest minority group, the Oromos, and is motivated by political fear. Thousands have been tortured, according the Amnesty’s report.
Amnesty based its report on 200 testimonies gathered in Ethiopia. “We interviewed former detainees with missing fingers, ears and teeth, damaged eyes and scars on every part of their body due to beating, burning and stabbing–all of which they said were the result of torture,” said Claire Beston, Amnesty International’s Ethiopia researcher.
The testimonies included extensive reports of torture and abuse, including prolonged detainment, detainment without charge, detention in unofficial military camps, mutilation using bayonets, hot coals, and hanging by wrists. Beatings, electric shocks, mock executions, burning with metal or molten plastic, rape and gang rape were common abuses reported.
The reason for the targeted abuse, according to Amnesty, is political. The government fears political opposition, stemming particularly from the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a regional armed group. Ethiopia will hold general elections in 2015, and Amnesty expects human rights abuses will continue or increase.
“The Ethiopian government’s relentless crackdown on real or imagined dissent among the Oromo is sweeping in its scale and often shocking in its brutality,” said Beston.
“This is apparently intended to warn, control or silence all signs of ‘political disobedience’ in the region.”
Numerous reports detailed arrests without cause or with only suspicion, arrests without charge or without trial, and arrests and retribution against uninvolved family members.
“People are arrested for the most tenuous of reasons: organizing a student cultural group, because their father had previously been suspected of supporting the OLF or because they delivered the baby of the wife of a suspected OLF member. Frequently, it’s because they refused to join the ruling party,” said Beston.
In April and May 2014, ethnic conflict in Ethiopia received international attention after security forces opened fire during a series of peaceful protests, and beat hundreds of protesters and bystanders. Dozens died and thousands were injured.
“These incidents were far from being unprecedented in Oromi,” said Beston. “They were merely the latest and bloodiest in a long pattern of suppression. However, much of the time, the situation in Oromia goes unreported.”
Approximately 5,000 ethnic Oromos have been arrested between 2011 and 2014 for political reasons, according to Amnesty.
Amnesty stated that it believed there was an urgent need for intervention in Ethiopia by regional and international humanitarian organizations that could conduct independent investigations into human rights abuse allegations in Oromia.
“The Ethiopian government must end the shameful targeting of thousands of Oromos based only on their actual or suspected political opinion. It must cease its use of detention without charge, torture and ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, enforced disappearance and unlawful killings to muzzle actual or suspected dissent,” said Beston.
A recent study by Yale University has found that isolating Ebola victims within four days of symptom onset could achieve disease elimination in Liberia. Setting out to determine how to best use scare resources to combat the Ebola outbreak overwhelming West Africa, and after analyzing the incidence and case fatality of the outbreak, the team concluded that the best hope for ending the spread of Ebola was isolation of Ebola victims very early in the progression of symptoms–although the time window suggested by the research was smaller than current time to hospital reporting in West Africa.
“The Ebola outbreak in Western Africa is spiraling out of control. The need to determine how to deploy scarce resources to end this crisis is urgent,” Dr Dan Yamin, Postdoctoral Associate in Epidemiology at Yale School of Medicine and lead author of the report, framed the study.
Dr Dan Yamin, lead researcher on the study
The goal of the study was to “evaluate the contribution of disease progression and case fatality to transmission and to examine the potential for targeted interventions to eliminate the disease,” according to the report.
The team used both clinical and epidemiological data–incidence and case fatality records–from the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, and found that secondary infections occurred during the infectious period of an Ebola victim at an average rate of 1.73. That is, each infected person passed on Ebola to 1.73 healthy individuals.
Distribution of secondary cases per infected individual among survivors and nonsurvivors
Ebola victims who did not survive passed the disease on to 0.66 people, while nonsurvivors passed the disease on to 2.36 people. Survivors of Ebola, the study found, infected at least one healthy person in 32 percent of cases. Nonsurvivors infected at least one healthy person with a 67 percent probability rate.
“Consequently, nonsurvivors, who made up 63% (CI, 60% to 64%) of the population, were responsible for 86% (CI, 63% to 98%) of transmissions,” the researchers found.
Left alone, “the number of newly reported cases will be doubled every 20 days,” Yamin told The Speaker, pointing out that the number of newly reported cases should not be misconstrued to be the total number of cases.
The conclusion reached by the team was that isolation of infected individuals offered a chance of eliminating the disease. Isolation of 75 percent of nonsurviving infected individuals within four days after symptoms began created a 74 percent chance of disease elimination. Isolation of all infected people offered a marginal reduction beyond the 74 percent. Isolation of asymptomatic people, however, made no practical sense, the researchers found.
“There is no medical sense in quarantining asymptomatic people,” Yamin told us. “All evidence shows that asymptomatic people (and people that were exposed and are in the “incubation period”) can’t transmit.
“Isolating all individuals before symptoms onset is not practical,” said Yamin, noting that, of course, it “would obviously lead to disease elimination.”
Average number of secondary cases per day of symptomatic disease
The most pragmatic way to actually combat Ebola in West Africa, Yamin told us, was isolation of only those people who were already symptomatic.
“In the absence of sufficient isolation units, our model emphasizes that targeted isolation of those who are mostly responsible for transmission may be the most efficient way to contain Ebola. Specifically, because infectiousness increases greatly with disease progression we found that that isolating 75% of infected individuals (particularly, the more severe cases) within four days of symptom onset has a high chance of eliminating the spread of the disease.
The researchers found that the current average period from symptom onset to hospitalization in Liberia was approximately 5 days–significantly beyond the requirements suggested by the study.
The researchers also evaluated the effectiveness of self-quarantine–a pragmatic strategy in areas where there were not sufficient isolation units. Self-quarantine of 75 percent of all infected could eradicate Ebola with 78 percent probability.
“Effectively, we tested self-quarantine by contact reduction of an infected person beyond what was currently reported,” Yamin told us. “The data provided by the Liberian Ministry of Health suggests that, an infected individual contacts, on average, with 6 people–this
Probability of disease elimination for different intervention strategies and coverages
number seems to be substantially lower than the number of contacts of a healthy person.
“Our results suggest that to achieve 78% for elimination, additional 60% reduction in contacts should occur following the first day from symptoms onset. Practically, implementing even this strategy seem to be challenging, which highlights the importance of increasing isolation units in Liberia.”
The conclusion of the researchers was that the massive international support directed at helping in West Africa “should be directed towards expanding the capacity of hospitalized case isolation.”
“Targeted isolation may offer the best hope of ending the Ebola epidemic.”
The report, “Effect of Ebola Progression on Transmission and Control in Liberia,” was authored by Dan Yamin, PhD; Shai Gertler; Martial L. Ndeffo-Mbah, PhD; Laura A. Skrip, MPH; Mosoka Fallah, PhD; Tolbert G. Nyenswah, MPH; Frederick L. Altice, MD, MA; and Alison P. Galvani, PhD, was published in Annals of Internal Medicine, and was funded primarily by the National Institute of Health.
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By Andrew Stern
Photo: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
