A 53-year-old businessman in Taiwan has the first case of the H7N9 bird flu virus outside mainland China, health officials there have confirmed. The man is in a serious condition in hospital days after returning from the Chinese city of Suzhou, officials say. China has confirmed 108 cases of H7N9 since it was initially reported in March, with at least 22 people dead. The World Health Organization (WHO) says this strain appears to spread more easily from birds to humans. The man in Taiwan was brought to hospital three days after he arrived from Suzhou via Shanghai, officials say.
He was not in contact with poultry, nor had he eaten undercooked birds while in Suzhou, Taiwanese Health Minister Chiu Wen-ta told local media. Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou has ordered the health department to step up prevention measures, says the country’s Central News Agency. Experts are still trying to understand the H7N9 virus, and it has not yet been determined whether it could be transferred between humans. “This is definitely one of the most lethal influenza viruses we have seen so far,” WHO flu expert Dr Keiji Fukuda said at a news conference in Beijing. “When we look at influenza viruses this is an unusually dangerous virus.”
He added that the WHO team was just beginning its investigation. But he said that based on the evidence, “this virus is more easily transmissible from poultry to humans than H5N1”, a strain which spread in 2003. Dr Fukuda led a team from the WHO on a one-week China visit to study H7N9, along with Chinese officials from Beijing and Shanghai. The WHO believes that poultry is still the likely source of the H7N9 outbreak in China.
Mark Duggan’s injuries appeared to be inconsistent with the scenario described by the police officer who shot him, it was suggested to a pathologist at the Old Bailey. Dr Simon Poole was testifying in the retrial of Kevin Hutchinson-Foster, who denies supplying an illegal gun to Mr Duggan the day he was shot. Post-mortem test showed Mr Duggan was shot in the chest and upper right arm. He was shot dead by police on 4 August 2011 in Tottenham, north London. His death sparked riots that swept across the capital and the country.
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Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has returned to a hero’s welcome in the West Bank after his successful move to upgrade the Palestinians’ UN status. “Now we have a state,” he told cheering supporters in Ramallah. “Palestine has accomplished a historic achievement.” On Thursday the United Nations General Assembly voted to recognise the Palestinians as an observer state. In response Israel halted the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority (PA). The decision, announced on Sunday by the Israeli finance ministry, means 460m shekels ($120m; £75m) will be withheld in December. The PA, which governs in the West Bank, is heavily dependant on tax revenues Israel collects on its behalf. A ministry spokesman told the BBC the money would instead be used to offset the PA’s debts, which include millions owed to Israel’s electricity company.
The Israeli decision was announced as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas returned to the West Bank from the UN in New York. He told thousands of flag-waving supporters in Ramallah that the vote to upgrade the Palestinians’ status from “non-member observer entity” to “non-member observer state” had shown the international community stood behind the Palestinian people. “The march was a long one, and the pressures were enormous,” Mr Abbas added. “But we stood fast and we prevailed, because we are the voice of these people.” Mr Abbas also called for reconciliation between Palestinians – a reference to the split between the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. On Friday Israel announced it would move ahead with building thousands of new homes in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, in another apparent response to the UN vote.
Israel’s prime minister has urged the world to draw a “clear red line” over Iran’s nuclear programme. In a speech at the UN, Benjamin Netanyahu said time was running out to stop Tehran from having enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb. Israel and Western countries suspect Iran is seeking such a capability. Tehran says its programme is peaceful. Earlier, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas asked the General Assembly to upgrade the Palestinians’ UN status.
Mr Netanyahu told delegates at the annual meeting of the assembly that Iran could have enough material to make a nuclear bomb by the middle of next year, and a clear message needed to be sent to stop Tehran in its tracks. “Red lines don’t lead to war, red lines prevent war,” he said. “Nothing could imperil the world more than a nuclear-armed Iran.” He said sanctions passed over the past seven years had not affected Tehran’s programme. “The hour is very late,” he told delegates. “The Iranian nuclear calendar does not take time out.” He said he was convinced that faced with a “clear red line, Iran will back down”. He added that he was confident the US and Israel could chart a common path on the issue.
Releasing sulphate aerosols high in the atmosphere should in theory reduce global temperatures by reflecting a small percentage of the incoming sunlight away from the Earth. However, the extra particles would also scatter more of the remaining light into the atmosphere. This would reduce by 20 per cent the amount of sunlight that takes a direct route to the ground, and it would increase levels of softer, diffuse scattered light, says Ben Kravitz of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California.
That would have knock-on effects for life – and human technology. The reduction in direct sunlight would impact the solar industry, which relies on direct sunlight to generate much of its power. But the increased indirect sunlight would boost photosynthesis beneath tree canopies. The most visible effect, though, would be above us.
The blue colour of the clear sky comes from light being scattering by molecules in the air. The scattering is much stronger for short blue wavelengths than for longer red wavelengths. Aerosol particles are much larger than molecules in the air, however, and they scatter red light more strongly, which washes out the blue light scattered by smaller molecules and makes the sky brighter and whiter.
I am such a slacker. I have to apologize for my lack of recent updates, but I’ve been trying to lay back and wrap my mind around the reality that we’ve finally succeeded.
There were, I confess, some days when I despaired of ever writing this. Get Glenn Mobile! came into existence just about two and a half years ago, and I knew from the start that it was likely to take some time to accomplish its goal of restoring my mobility. There are plenty of good causes in the world, mine was only one of many of them, economic times are hard and of course the State is doing its best to make them even harder. So, yeah, there were times, especially bleak, grey, cold winter days and nights like we’ve had lately when all I could see was that road stretching off and out of sight with no…
Two senior members of London 2012’s security firm have been suspended after reports suggested they didn’t carry out a number of security checks in the Olympic Park. The security workers, whose sniffer dogs were used to search for explosives during the building of the Olympic Park, are alleged to have said that they carried out security checks that never happened over a three-month period. G4S, the security company who holds the £250m security contract for London 2012, has told LBC 97.3 a full review of its canine operation is now taking place and safety and security of the venue remains their primary focus.
A statement read: “Two senior members of our dog team working on the Olympic Park have been suspended from duty while an investigation takes place into allegations of irregularities. “A full review of our canine operation on the Olympic Park is being undertaken, and if any shortcomings in the system are uncovered they will be corrected. “We take breaches of working practices extremely seriously and if our investigations reveal evidence of malpractice we will take appropriate action against those responsible. “While enquiries take place we are unable to go into further details The safety and security of the Olympic Park remains our primary focus.”
4TheRecord 