JUBA, South Sudan — The leader of the minority party in the National Legislative Assembly, Onyoti Adigo, has suggested convening a national consensus dialogue to resolve critical issues rather than conducting partial elections in June.
“The Government should call all political parties, civil society organizations, faith-based groups and people to decide the way forward,” Onyoti told the New Nation.
According to the minority leader, if the government is accepted by all, the mandate should be to bring peace, reconcile and unite people, build trust, and afterwards elections could be organized — “After census and geographical constituencies is known,” said Onyoti.
“Supposing the government goes for elections in June and in July there is peace, you might have wasted time by establishing another transitional period again. If you think about elections, it means the government is not for peace.”
The warring parties in the IGAD-brokered talks have agreed on the formation of a transitional government as a final deal is negotiated to end the war.
They have agreed on a 27 cabinet ministers, but the most sticky issue is who heads the government, as the rebels propose their leader, Riek Machar, and Juba insists on South Sudanese President Salva Kiir as the leader of the transitional government of national unity.
“They brought the example of Sudan, Syria and Afghanistan, which ran elections. Are those countries peaceful now? They are killing their own citizens,” he said.
The minority leader added that those dying in both sides of the conflict are South Sudanese, so the example of Syria and Iraq holding elections during turmoil are irrelevant to the country.
He further said partial elections are not democratically acceptable, and in the case of South Sudan there maybe four states: Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity and Lakes.
“How can the government talk of elections when thousands are in IDP camps and those in towns experience hunger even in Juba? Instead of thinking of the people — for them to eat — you talk of an election. Money should have been for the suffering people. The displaced are in dire need of food, sanitation, water and medical care, and you want to take billions for elections.”
According to the leader of minority, the money allocated for elections is not within the law as it is not reflected in the budget and appropriation bill endorsed by Parliament when the national budget was passed last year.
“When we approved the budget, the amount was not there. It should have been approved by Parliament. They want to use it, as previous billions were lost. It is a violation of the law,” said Onyoti.
An accidental discovery made by researchers testing the weight-bearing capacities of a small bird in the Tennessee mountains has shed light on how birds’ senses–notably their ability to hear very low infrasounds characteristic of large storms–allow the animals to avert meteorological catastrophes.
“I think this is just one newly discovered example of the many ways other animals perceive and interact with their environment that are different from how we humans work, Dr. Henry Streby of Beissinger Lab at UC Berkeley, the lead author of the study, told The Speaker.
Birds’ ability to hear weather demonstrated in storm-avoiding relocation
“We tend to assume other animals are hearing, seeing, and smelling things the same way we do, but we know many other animals sense things far outside of the range of our senses. It is difficult to imagine what goes on in a bird’s brain; they hear higher and lower frequency sounds that we do and they see in a much wider light spectrum and a more complicated color space than we do. Our study, and others tracking migratory birds, are starting to show some of the ways birds can use their impressive senses to get around and stay safe from weather and other dangers.”
The team was working in the Cumberland Mountains of eastern Tennessee, testing the weight-bearing capacity of a small bird.
“A golden-winged warbler weighs only 9 grams, which is less than the mass of 2 US nickles or one British Pound coin,” Streby described his subject. They wanted to know if the bird could carry geolocators on their backs.
Around 24 hours before a large storm blew into the area, spawning 84 tornadoes and killing at least 25 people, the warblers unexpectedly picked up and moved 1,500 kilometers in five days. The team was able to monitor their movements because of the devices they had saddled some of the birds with.
Streby qualified that he couldn’t say with certainty that the birds flew in large groups.
“Our sample of birds carrying tracking devices was quite small, but we suspect they were not the only ones that left,” Streby said. “Although these movements seem impressive, and they occurred outside of the birds’ normal migration period, they were well within the known capabilities of these birds. The birds in this population regularly make similar long distance movements during their spring and fall migration to and from Colombia.”
However, the timing and character of the birds’ movements led the researchers to conclude that a mass temporary relocation took place when the birds sensed that the massive storm was headed their way.
“People have been studying this species on the breeding grounds for decades, but we only just started tracking their migration during this study,” Streby told us.
“Movements like this have not been reported before, and we did not see anything like this during the previous year with this population or with another population we were tracking that was not in the storm’s path. So, basically, we have an extraordinary large-scale movement away from the breeding grounds and back again, that correlates perfectly with the timing of this enormous and powerful storm. Avoiding the storm is the most likely explanation.”
The warbler, like other birds, are particularly attuned to hearing weather, Streby explained. “We know birds are particularly attuned to these very low infrasounds, and we know that large tornado producing storms create infrasound in the exact same frequency range, but nobody had put the two together until this report.”
Next, the team will undertake a further phase of their research, which is expanding in unpredicted ways–they will be collecting data from hundreds of migrating birds, and the team is looking forward to new unexpected developments.
“In 2015, we will be marking more than 400 birds of this species and a closely related species at 16 sites across their entire breeding range. Our goal is to find out where all of these populations spend the winter and where the important resting and refueling places are along their migration routes. These species are of high conservation concern and we are hoping to better understand the challenges they face during all aspects of their annual cycle. We did not intend to study how these birds respond to extreme weather events, but if they encounter any storms like the one from 2014, or maybe have to fly around a hurricane during migration, or something else completely unexpected, I’m excited to see what they do.
“We shouldn’t assume animals perceive their environment the same way we do,” Streby said. “We are lucky to have all of our experts and technology monitoring the weather and warning us when tornadoes or other dangers are coming our way. It is amazing to discover the different tools wildlife have for knowing what is coming too. It is also important for readers to understand that these birds apparently sensed the storm at a great distance, and there is a logical scientific explanation for how they did it; they did not magically detect the storm long before it existed like many media outlets have suggested.”
The report, “Tornadic Storm Avoidance Behavior in Breeding Songbirds,” was completed by Henry M. Streby, Gunnar R. Kramer, Sean M. Peterson, Justin A. Lehman, David A. Buehler, and David E. Andersen, and was published in the online Current Biology.
Microsoft Devices Group and communications and information technology company Nokia are launching a $29 cell phone that will last one month on a single charge.
“With our ultra-affordable mobile phones and digital services, we see an inspiring opportunity to connect the next billion people to the Internet for the first time,” Jo Harlow, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Devices Group, said of the device. “The Nokia 215 is perfect for people looking for their first mobile device, or those wanting to upgrade to enjoy affordable digital and social media services, like Facebook and Messenger.”
The Nokia 215 will be the Finnish company’s “most affordable internet-ready” phone, and will be marketed to buyers in developing markets, particularly in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, in Q1 of this year.
The 215 is enabled with 2G wireless technology, carries a VGA camera, and will be available in both single- and double-SIM models. The 215 will also be equipped with a flashlight–an important selling feature for around 20 percent of the world’s population who live in regions with no regular access to electric power.
The battery life of the 215 allow nearly one month of standby power (21 days for the dual-SIM model) or 21 days (20 hours) of talk time. The battery also allows for 45 hours of FM radio playback.
The 215 also comes equipped with access to social media services like Facebook, Twitter and Messenger.
Bacteria divide into two identical progeny cells, right? According to Professor Peter Young and his team at the University of York’s Department of Biology, this is only part of the picture. The team recently studied a community of rhizobia from a clod of earth dug up from the university campus, and found that bacterial cells are in fact unique, despite bearing identical core genomes, and that this is due to individual accessory packages carried by the cells.
We can picture the bacterial genome as having two parts, according to Dr. J. Peter W. Young, professor of Molecular Ecology at the University of York and lead author of the study. While all members of a bacterial species carry a very similar core genome, they also carry an accessory package of genes which are not essential to the cell’s operation, but which allow individuals to cope with the special demands of their environments.
Dr. Peter Young
“The best known accessory package in rhizobia is the set of genes that enable them to form their symbiosis with plants,” Young told The Speaker. “These ‘sym’ genes include ‘nod’ genes that produce signal molecules that induce the plant to make a nodule and let the bacteria in, and ‘nif’ and ‘fix’ genes that encode the nitrogen-fixation process. These genes usually occur as a cluster in the genome, commonly on a plasmid, which is a separate element that can often be transferred easily. We looked at rhizobia from two different wild plant species, a clover and a vetch, that the bacteria need very different nod genes to interact with. Hence, all the strains were either clover specialists or vetch specialists. However, bacteria that were very similar in their core genome could have either of these specialisms, because the sym genes have been transferred from strain to strain.
“Another set of accessory genes gave the bacteria the ability to grow on gamma-hydroxybutyrate. These genes were also scattered across the population, without regard to the host background and independently of the sym genes. We had a few difficulties with this part of the study because this substance has been used as a date-rape drug and is hard to get hold of legally.”
The team dug in the dirt for their research. They took a square meter of earth from the roadside of the University of York campus and isolated a particular bacterium called Rhizobium leguminosarum.
They then established 72 distinct strains of the bacteria they found in that clump–each had different genes that allowed it to grow on different sources of food. But, Young commented, the potential benefits of the work are not limited to an understanding of bacteria as individuals.
“We studied the complete genomes of 72 bacterial strains–that is a lot of information that can be used to address many questions. Besides the ‘bacteria are individual’ and ‘bacteria transfer functional gene modules’ messages, there are other issues that are important, at least to those who work with bacteria. One of my targets is to improve the way we describe new bacterial species. We have no real idea how many bacterial species there are. Many fewer bacteria have been named than insects, but this is unlikely to reflect reality–it is just a slow business to describe new bacteria. We could now describe bacterial species much more clearly using genome sequences, or at least the core genome sequences.
“The problem is that, for historical reasons, taxonomists insist that there must also be phenotypic differences, that is, observable differences in growth, etc. What we have shown is that this is illogical–almost all these phenotypes are due to accessory genes, and these move about so much that it is impossible to define stable species using them.”
“We are not the solution; we are a tool in order to create a new situation.” – Pablo Iglesias, political spokesperson for Podemos
The traditional bipartisan state of Spanish politics is now under threat. A party and a political movement originating from the 15-M indignant protests of 2011 is gaining ground on the political battlefield to a point where Podemos has found itself at the top of the polls according to a survey recently conducted by El Pais newspaper.
Nearly 28.2 percent of people asked said they would be voting for the new party, five percentage points ahead of the two main parties, the left-wing Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) and the right-wing party People’s Party (PP).
Since the death of the prolific Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, these two main parties have interchanged on a consistent basis.
But the parties have recently found themselves losing votes in droves and their image being eroded away by the current climate of economic austerity, with increasing cuts and high employment on one hand and political corruption of an unmeasurable scale on the other.
The people of Spain are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the traditional two-party system, and Podemos has come along at just the right time (“Podemos” being the Spanish for, “We can,” a tag-line lifted from US President Barack Obama´s campaign).
The party is headed up by political science professor Pablo Iglesias, who has links to Cuban and Equatorial political parties with which he shares some common ground. Iglesias has been clever not to position himself in either the right or left of the political spectrum, allowing the party to gain votes from disenchanted supporters from all sides.
Podemos´s rise to popularity over the years has been due to corruption scandals that have damaged the main bipartisan parties, along with the fact that neither party has been able to control spiraling employment figures or aggressive banks that are becoming increasingly heavy-handed with mortgage defaulters.
Podemos seeks to manage the austerity by renegotiating Spain´s debt-paying commitments and stopping evictions on mortgage defaulters, as well as reducing retirement age to 60.
Along with successful online media campaigns, Podemos have used anti-elitism rhetoric to their advantage, repeatedly enforcing the idea of the self-interests of the two main parties and the “ caste” idealism that has led to the current state of affairs.
Podemos has decided to use a transparency system regarding its finances, publishing its expenses and salaries on a webpage.
Podemos´s rise to political power is being fuelled by younger voters, aged 25-34, who feel disenfranchised by the political system and the current unmitigated corruption scandals and mismanagement which is coming out in the press on a daily basis. Even once revered and stable political figures such as the Catalan politian Jordi Pujol have been exposed for siphoning off public funds to offshore fiscal paradises.
Podemos released an anti-corruption propaganda video using the words of JordiPuyol against him: “It isn´t just the apples, it is the entire tree that is rotten, they all will fall.”
Currently in Romania there are over 19,000 people living on the streets, including hundreds of children. Some such children are taken care of in shelters. In this video portrait, Alberto, a 14-year-old from a shelter home in Bucharest, explains what it’s like to live in an orphanage and how he got there in the first place.
“The shocking part of this story is not that he has no parents or a family, but that he had them! The reason why his mother left him there was the only too well-known reason of money problems. With the father out of the picture, his mother didn’t have enough money to raise him at home, and the heartbreaking part is that he couldn’t go to school because he had to stay at home and take care of his younger brothers, which he dearly did–he loved them to pieces. A major reason for Alberto being where is is that he couldn’t stay away from them. He said that his mother couldn’t afford the rent, they didn’t have a proper place to sleep or take a warm shower, they could barely afford daily food.
“In spite of the hard life he went through, he still had a very positive mind.”
New hope for a universal flu vaccine has come out of recent work by a join research team from McMaster University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. The team published a report Wednesday on a new class of broadly-neutralizing antibodies that are expected to increase the potency of our weapons against flu viruses.
“These broadly-neutralizing antibodies work very well in the context of natural human responses to vaccines or infections,” Dr. Matthew Miller, an assistant professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University, told The Speaker. “This means that vaccines in development that are targeting these antibodies have a high chance of success.
Dr. Matthew Miller
“In addition, the types of antibodies present in the lung are especially good at providing ‘universal’ protection against flu, so if we can successfully increase their numbers by vaccination, they are likely to be very potent at protecting against infection.”
The research team’s work involves a previously unknown class of antibodies capable of neutralizing a wide range of influenza A viruses.
“These broadly-neutralizing antibodies bind to a region on the viral entry protein–the hemagglutinin stalk/stem domain–that are intolerant to change/mutation,” Miller told us.
“They were first discovered through the analysis of antibody repertoires isolated from mice–in the laboratory setting–and humans who had been exposed to influenza virus by either vaccination or infection.
“As a result, they are capable of neutralizing a much broader range of viruses than the type of exquisitely-strain specific antibodies that are predominantly elicited by current seasonal flu vaccines.”
The new antibodies have virus-fighting capabilities not possessed by the strain-specific antibodies currently in use.
“While flu is very good at mutating the region of the protein that strain-specific antibodies bind, it does not tolerate changes in the region bound by broadly-neutralizing antibodies. This seems to be because the structure of this region is very important for other viral functions.”
Miller explained how these new antibodies are different from isolated strain-specific antibodies.
“Strain-specific antibodies bind to the “head” domain of the viral hemagglutinin, which mutates readily and differs substantially among strains of flu. These broadly-neutralizing bind to a conserved region in the hemagglutinin stalk domain that is intolerant to mutation.”
The new antibodies hold wide promise, the researchers expect: mutations of the virus would also be protected against by the new vaccines, and flu pandemics could be eliminated.
Miller expects that a universal flu vaccine could become a reality within the next five to seven years.
Since mid December 2013, South Sudan has been experiencing a political crisis that erupted within the ruling party’s top leadership. The crisis started in the national capital, Juba, in Central Equatoria state and engulfed other states like Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei.
Western Equatoria state has been one of the states that has experienced relative peace compared with other states in the country, with the exception of smaller insecurity problems caused by Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in some parts of the state like Ezo, Nzara and Tombura counties that border Central African Republic–CAR and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) respectively.
However, last year parts of Mundri West, Mundri East, Mvolo and Maridi Counties have been invaded my cattle keepers from Lake State. The coming of these cattle keepers into the area is causing tension with the local who are mostly farmers. The pastoralist communities often graze on the farms of the host communities in almost all the counties mentioned above.
Apart from this problem, the host communities accused the invading communities from Lakes States of cattle rustling. Cattle are often raided from other communities, either in Jonglei or in Lakes states, and being driven to Western Equatoria State. This conflict has caused the death of a large but unrecorded number of people on both sides.
The cattle keepers have also started raiding the cattle of the locals. On Dec. 26, 2014 at midnight cattle raiding occurred in an area called Modubai Boma, about 20 km north of Maridi town. Three locals were killed and one injured. Many herds of cattle were driven to unknown areas towards Lakes State.
Apart from the insecurity of cattle raiding, the evading communities have been accused of taking part in ambushing and looting vehicles travelling within the states.
Last week, the police in Maridi County intercepted a plan by the suspected cattle raiders who staged an ambush along Mambe-Yei road. One suspect was killed.
This new development in the state has caused worry to the governor, Mr. Joseph Bangasi Bakasoro, and the whole population, who know nothing about warlike situations.
In an effort to defuse the worrying situation, the state government is organizing for a peace conference to take place soon in the most affected areas of Mundri East and West as well as Mvolo and Maridi Counties. The conference is targeting both the cattle keepers and the host communities.
Predispositions to prejudice can be manipulated, according to new research. By making social minorities appear to hold egalitarian beliefs, researchers demonstrated that those minority individuals would bear less prejudice–both implicit and explicit–from American and Chinese nationals. By manipulating the would-be judges so that they made their appraisals of minority individuals while in a collectivist mind-set, the researchers found this also could reduce prejudicial judgements.
Dr. Jeanine Skorinko
“Our attitudes, both positive and negative, can be shaped by subtle factors in our social environment—things that we may not even be aware of, such as the cultural values we are thinking about at the moment or the message on another person’s t shirt,” Dr. Jeanine Skorinko, Associate Professor of Psychology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Department of Social Science and Policy Studies and lead researcher on the study, told The Speaker.
“By conducting research on these topics, we can start to better understand the effects these different factors have so we can better understand how our attitudes are shaped, how attitudes are transmitted, and how attitudes might change–whether short or long-term. When we learn about the effects these subtle factors have, we can hopefully become more mindful during our interactions with others and when thinking about our attitudes. It is also important to understand cultural similarities and differences as it is so much easier to communicate with others throughout the world, and we still, sadly, have ethnic and cultural discontent and violence.”
Skorinko explained how she and the team set on testing the effects of egalitarian views and collectivist mindsets on the formation of prejudicial judgements.
“This set of studies came about in several ways,” Skorinko told us. “As a group of folks interested in the phenomenon of social tuning, we chatted about cross-cultural differences and wondered how social tuning might work with collectivist mindsets versus the individualist mindsets we had been testing in the lab. Then I had the opportunity to collect some data while in Hong Kong. I was there as a faculty advisor for WPI’s global projects program and I took the initiative to collect some data to start testing this idea we had been thinking about. As for the views, we could have tested egalitarian or prejudiced views, and we opted to start with the more positive approach. This was also inspired by a t-shirt that I found while in Hong Kong.”
The researchers found that Hong Kong Chinese were less prejudiced toward homosexuals when the homosexual was perceived to be egalitarian.
“We manipulated the views based on the t-shirt the experimenter was wearing. We have found in past research that this is a subtle yet effective manipulation of perceived views because we assume people endorse something they are wearing. So, in this study, the experimenter either wore a plain white shirt–expressing no views, or what we call the neutral views condition–or they wore a t shirt that said, ‘People don’t discriminate, they learn it,’ and there were caricatures of individuals of all different ethnic backgrounds.
“I saw this shirt while visiting an NGO in Hong Kong called Hong Kong Unison. Their mission is to help racial and ethnic relations in Hong Kong. So, the shirt came from Hong Kong and from a group trying to improve relations in Hong Kong We made sure that people believed that the message and pictures on the shirt indicated egalitarian views by showing the t-shirt to individuals–in the US and Hong Kong–and asking them to tell us what the t-shirt meant to them. Participants overwhelming reported that it endorsed egalitarian views towards all groups of people.”
Skorinko noted that there was no manipulation of whether the experimenter was homosexual or not. The team merely manipulated whether the experimenter endorsed egalitarian views towards others or not.
Skorinko elaborated on how differences in prejudice were identified, and pointed out the important finding that mindset was more important than cultural affiliation when it came to prejudice.
“We conducted a meta-analysis across the three studies to see if there were any differences in prejudice that were expressed. We found that those in a collectivist mindset tended to express more prejudice when in the neutral–or plain t-shirt–condition than any other group. The important thing about this finding is it is across all three studies so the participants are both Hong Kongers and Americans, and the important variable is their mindset—collectivist or individualist, and not necessarily their cultural background. This is in line with some past research that shows that collectivists are more sensitive to distinctions between ingroup and outgroup [Erez & Eearley, 1993; Triandis, et al., 1988].”
The two types of mindset looked at were impressed on the participants through the use of individual and collectivist values in story narratives.
“In the first study, we looked at cultural background as an indicator of collectivist mindset. So, we had American (individualist) and Hong Kong (collectivist) participants. In the second study, we ran only American participants. We manipulated the mindset by having participants read a short story about a warrior. This warrior had to make a big decision. The decision was either motivated by personal interests or by family interests.
“Past research has shown the those who read about the decision made by the personal interests are primed to be in a more individualistic mindset; whereas, those who read about the decision made by family interests tend to be in a more collectivist mindset [Oyserman & lee, 2008; Trafimow, et al., 1991]. In the third study, we ran only Hong Kong participants. For this study we did not use the warrior prime instead we used a task that was used successfully in the past with Hong Kong participants [Hong, et al, 2000; Wong & Hong, 2009]. For this study, we manipulated the mindset by showing participants five icons. These icons either represented American culture (American flag, Statue of Liberty) or Chinese culture (Great Wall, Forbidden City). Participants identified each icon and wrote a few sentences about what each icon meant to them. Participants successfully identified the icons–regardless of the culture they depicted.”
The difference, practically, between implicit and explicit prejudice was found to be that some prejudices are expressed and other are not, but, Skorinko pointed out, these two prejudices may not reflect each other–and may not even be desired.
“Practically, explicit attitudes are those that we consciously know and can express; whereas, implicit attitudes are unconscious and ones we cannot express. Our implicit and explicit attitudes may not align–or maybe they will, it depends. So, we may consciously think and say that we are egalitarian, but we may also have some implicit prejudices towards some groups. For instance, I firmly believe that women should be scientists and I am a female scientist–my explicit attitude. But, when I take the gender-career implicit association task [IAT], I find that I have a slight association for women and arts, rather than women and science–my implicit attitude. So, my explicit attitude is, ‘Go women scientists!’ but my implicit attitude may not be as enthusiastic–and yes, this bothers me to no end, especially as a female scientist!”
Skorinko explained how culture can influence views, including prejudicial views, and offered some educated guesses on whether prejudice could be increased through the types of manipulation used in this study to decrease prejudice.
“There are a number of factors that influence how we think about the world around us, including how we think about other groups. From this set of studies we know that both our cultural mindset–or cultural values orientation–and what we think our interaction partner thinks are very important in the expression of egalitarian views. If we are in a mindset to value our social connections and maintain group harmony (a collectivist orientation) than this research suggests that we will be more likely to pay attention to and align our views with the views expressed by our interaction partner. If we are in a mindset that we are unique and are more self-focused (an individualist orientation) than we will be less likely to pay attention and align our views with our interaction partner’s views.
“In this set of studies, we only looked at what happens when our interaction partner expresses egalitarian views. We would need to conduct further research to see what happens when an interaction partner expresses prejudiced views. Based on the social tuning framework, it is possible that if an interaction partner expressed prejudiced beliefs that collectivists might express more prejudice towards that group. But, we need to conduct more research to see what happens!
“I also want to note that individualists are not immune to social tuning. Rather, our original work shows that individualists who have the right motivation will also align their views with their interaction partner. So, if an individualist has the desire to get along with their interaction partner (affiliative motivation) than they are more likely to social tune towards the perceived views of their partner (whether the views are egalitarian or prejudiced). Also, if an individual has the desire to gain knowledge (epistemic motivation) than they are more likely to social tune towards the perceived views of their partner.
“The bottom line—expressing egalitarian views and kindness towards others especially during social interactions can, at times, help others also express those egalitarian attitudes,” Skorinko concluded. “It is a good first step in making the world a more egalitarian and hopefully tolerant place.”
The report, “Reducing Prejudice Across Cultures via Social Tuning,” was completed by Jeanine L. M. Skorinko, Janetta Lun, Stacey Sinclair, Satia A. Marotta, Jimmy Calanchini, and Melissa H. Paris, and was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
A never-before incident has taken place in Lithuania, and a 49-year-old woman named Irena from the city of Panevėžys, in the region of Raguva, had to face justice for her crime. The woman left her 17-year-old pregnant daughter without help when her life was in danger.
Earlier this year police inPanevėžys found the body of a young woman–known to the public only as Kristina–and a newborn baby 2 meters from the riverside in the valley of Nevėžis.
The officers later found that the young lady had given birth at home, and had even herself cut the umbilical cord. The scissors were laid on the ground in blood. After Kristina had given birth she took the newborn baby in her arms and went to the river. She jumped off the bridge with her baby in her arms.
Later in the court her mother pleaded, “I am not guilty of what happened with my daughter. I beg you to let me leave the court. I loved my daughter, but she herself chose her way.”
A few years ago Kristina’s father died tragically. Until then he and the mother had been habitual alcoholics. Kristina was the youngest child in the family. Her teacher said that she was a calm girl but since the 5th grade she was usually absent from school. It seemed that she would come to school only to eat, as the food was provided free.
There are two other children in the family, a sister and a brother. The sister is studying and the brother is working for living. The mother has already been in court in the past for not taking care of the children. Social workers and children’s right defenders were usual guests at their home. The mother never changed her lifestyle.
Neighbors and other locals reported seeing the youngest daughter with a young man who was from another village walking together and holding hands shortly before rumors of Kristina’s pregnancy began to circulate. Kristina, however, had always denied the rumors.
A social worker from the Kristina’s school offered to provide her with a pregnancy test, after which the test result was announced to be negative. But before long it became difficult for the skinny young woman to hide the pregnancy.
Oksana, a neighbor, said, “I took all the clothes from my baby. I thought Kristina’s newborn would need them as there is no one who could help and take care of her. Kristina was always a calm girl. She never kept in contact with others. Her alcoholic mother never loved Kristina.”
When her mother found out about her daughter’s pregnancy, she called her bad names, beat her and left her homeless. When Kristina gave birth at home, her mother was drinking alcohol in another room. She did not want to know and hear anything about her daughter or the baby.
The young mother and child were buried in the same coffin. Kristina was wearing a wedding dress and the newborn was laid on her chest.
Several week after the funeral of Kristina and her newborn, we went to see her her mother, Irena. There was a bad smell and dirt all over her house. In the middle of the day, the woman laid in the dirty bed and slept. She woke up crying, “I loved my daughter so much. I never did or said anything wrong to her. I’ll take care of her grave.
The woman does not hide her addiction to alcohol. “It is my fault that when she was giving birth I was drunk laying in my be.” When her daughter cried and yelled because of labor pains her mother never heard it. When Kristina cut the umbilical cord she put the newborn baby in a bed-sheet so the baby would not get cold. She was holding the baby when she left the house with no shoes in the cold weather. The footprints of blood were seen there.
A big heart of red flowers was put on the grave of these girls to represent the love of a family which they have never felt.
Aging and longevity varies across the Earth’s species, and some scientists are seeking for an ability to improve health in humans by learning from the genes of other animals. The bowhead whale gene was recently mapped by UK researchers who believe various genetic “tricks” that allow the whale to live up to 200 years can be learned and potentially “performed” by human genes.
“I study aging and longevity to ultimately develop interventions that preserve health and combat disease by manipulating the aging process,” Dr. Joao Pedro de Magalhaes of the University of Liverpool and author of the study, told The Speaker.
Dr. Joao Pedro de Magalhaes
“Thus for several years I’ve been interested in the bowhead whale as the longest lived mammal. I think that having the genome sequence of the bowhead whale will allow researchers to study basic molecular processes and identify maintenance mechanisms that help preserve life, avoid entropy, and repair molecular damage. This is a different approach in biomedical research. Most research on human diseases is usually based on animal models that develop the disease under study at a higher incidence and rate than normal. The use of disease-resistant organisms to identify genes, mechanisms and processes that protect against–rather than cause–disease is an unexplored paradigm.”
Aging, Magalhaes points out, has a profound effect on human society as well as medicine, but is one of the major puzzles of biology. In his ongoing work at the Integrative Genomics of Aging Group, Magalhaes is seeking greater understanding of the mechanisms of aging–cellular, molecular and genetic–and he believes the field in which his research takes place holds more potential to improve health than any other biomedical field.
In the latest work, the Liverpool University team investigated the bowhead whale gene in order to find, as Magalhaes phrases it, genetic “tricks” that provide for longer and healthier life.
“In particular, we discovered changes in bowhead genes known to be related to cell cycle, DNA repair, cancer, and aging that suggest alterations that may be biologically-relevant. So my own view is that this points toward improved DNA repair and cell cycle regulation mechanisms to prevent DNA damage accumulation during the lifescourse which in turn promotes longevity and resistance to age-related diseases. But a lot more work is still necessary to prove this.”
A potential humanitarian crisis is unfolding in rural Cambodia, as over 550 families have been ejected from land that they claim to have purchased during the reign of Pol Pot. It is unknown if they have the physical documentation proving that they properly bought the land, and are thus at the mercy of the military, who have physically removed them from their village. So far, three of the village leaders have been arrested and the road leading to the area has been blockaded.
According to a source who has been in contact with displaced villagers from the area, about three weeks ago the military reclaimed the village of Phnom Tebang Bantay Sreyand and the land on which it sits. The village is approximately 20 kilometers north of Siem Reap and near the Angkor Wat temple complex. The villagers at this point are homeless and have little if any food and water, and are apparently reluctant to accept outside aid.
The source, who wished to remain anonymous and who we will refer to as Mr. White, went on to say that they possibly have a local that can assist in getting resources to the displaced villagers. “We are trying to work through a monk who may be able to find a way to get the food and water to them, [however] we will need to fund the supplies ourselves.”
He also said that the villagers themselves were frustrated and angry over the handling of the matter, as reported by Radio Free Asia (RFA). “Apparently [the radio station] have said that they [the villagers] are occupying illegally. They believe the government is behind this.”
Most of the confusion seems to originate in the current inability to locate the paperwork stating that the land has been properly paid for. This, according to Mr. White, is “part of the problem. The villages claim they have paid for the land but it seems no one can find the deeds.”
Solina, one of the displaced villagers, told Mr. White that they are “all hungry and scared. We have nowhere to go… We have no food or water.”
Mr. White expressed frustration that there has been little to no global response to the dire needs of the villagers, and attributes that to Cambodia’s being “on the back burner” of the world’s attention. “This is a humanitarian crisis and anywhere else in the world [this] would be front page news. Unfortunately no one really cares abut Cambodia.”
He is hopeful, however, that even though “human rights has been dragging their feet to get food on the ground,” eventually awareness of the villager’s situation will increase and more assistance will be on the way.
Mr. White offered that anyone who wants additional information about the situation, updates or to help could contact him at through this reporter.
help and take care of her. Kristina was always a calm girl. She never kept in contact with others. Her alcoholic mother never loved Kristina.”
