The ad starts with a sober, simulated news report. A news anchor, looking directly into the camera, warns viewers about Brazil’s proposed gun ban. People are misrepresenting the disarmament issue, she says. It won’t disarm criminals. The anchor fades and a news-on-the-march montage begins, highlighting freedom’s red-letter days. Nelson Mandela is released from prison. A single man impedes a row of tanks in Tiananmen Square. The Berlin Wall falls. Your rights are at risk, says the anchor, returning after the inspiring film clips. Don’t lose your grip on liberty. And then, to bring the message home, archival footage runs of thousands of Brazilians taking to the streets, restoring popular rule after more than two decades of dictatorship. The ad was the first in a series that aired on Brazilian prime-time television last October, when both sides of the country’s gun control debate engaged in a heated exchange about the future of gun laws in South America’s largest democracy. Proponents of the gun ban proposed outlawing the commercial sale of arms and ammunition to civilians, capping a series of controls enacted in recent years. Unless you were a police officer, a soldier, or a private security guard, you wouldn’t be […]
ATLANTA – The government, for the first time, is urging doctors not to prescribe two antiviral drugs commonly used to fight influenza because of concerns about drug resistance, officials announced Saturday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the recommendation covers the drugs rimantadine and amantadine during the current flu season. “Laboratory testing by CDC on the predominant strain of influenza (H3N2) currently circulating in the United States shows that it is resistant to these drugs,” according to a CDC statement. The two drugs have been used for years to combat the type-A, or most common, strain of influenza. The CDC tested 120 influenza A virus isolates from the H3N2 strain and found that 91 percent, or 109, were resistant to the two drugs, according to the statement. “This represents a sharp increase from last year when only 11 percent of isolates tested were resistant and 1.9 percent were resistant the year before that,” the statement said. One flu expert, Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University, said the development was “disconcerting” as flu now has joined the ranks of other diseases, such as tuberculosis and HIV, that recently have acquired the ability to […]
A total of 3.5 million Ashkenazi Jews are descended from just four “founding mothers” who lived in Europe at least 1,000 years ago, according to a study by Israeli geneticists. The four women were part of a small group which founded the Ashkenazi community, established in Europe after migration from the Middle East, and was ultimately descended from Jews who migrated to Italy in the first and second centuries AD. The discovery that the women are the ancestors of some 40 per cent of all eight million Ashkenazi, or European Jews, has been made possible by analysing the michrondrial DNA [mtDNA] component of the human genome. MtDNA is only transmitted through the female line. The researchers found that the mtDNA common to the Ashkenazi group of women is virtually unknown among non-Jews but is also found in a minority of non-European, or Sephardic Jews, which the study team says is “evidence of shared maternal ancestry of Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews”. The study showed that it was common to the group during what the team say was “a major overall expansion in Europe during the last millennium”. The Ashkenazi population has frequently been studied by human geneticists […]
BAGHDAD — The chief judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein has tendered his resignation in protest at pressure from the Iraqi government on himself and the court, a source close to the judge told Reuters on Saturday. The revelation will fuel argument over the U.S.-backed government’s ability to give the former president a fair trial in the middle of the bitter sectarian and ethnic conflict that has raged since Saddam’s overthrow three years ago. High Tribunal officials were trying to talk Kurdish judge Rizgar Amin out of his decision, the source said, adding that Amin was reluctant to stay because Shi’ite leaders had criticized him for being too lenient on Saddam in court. “He tendered his resignation to the court a few days ago but the court rejected it. Now talks are under way to convince him to go back on his decision,” the source said. “He’s under a lot of pressure; the whole court is under political pressure.” “He had complaints from the government that he was being too soft in dealing with Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants. They (government leaders) want things to go faster.” The killing of two defense lawyers had […]
WICHITA, Kan. — Satellites have monitored crop conditions around the world for decades, helping traders predict futures prices in commodities markets and governments anticipate crop shortages. But those satellite images are now increasingly turning up in courtrooms across the nation as the Agriculture Department’s Risk Management Agency cracks down on farmers involved in crop insurance fraud. The Agriculture Department’s Farm Service Agency, which helps farmers get loans and payments from a number of its programs, also uses satellite imaging to monitor compliance. Across government and private industry alike, satellite imaging technology is being used in water rights litigation and in prosecution of environmental cases ranging from a hog confinement facility’s violations of waste discharge regulations to injury damage lawsuits stemming from herbicide applications. The technology is also used to monitor the forestry and mining industries. “A lot of farmers would be shocked at the detail you can tell. What it does is keep honest folks honest,” said G.A. “Art” Barnaby Jr., an agricultural economist at Kansas State University. Satellite technology, which takes images at roughly eight-day intervals, can be used to monitor when farmers plant their acreage, how they irrigate them and what crops they […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
