JAPAN: Man Dies After 32 Hospital Visits in 2 HOURS!?

A 75-year-old Japanese man died after 25 hospitals refused to admit him to their emergency rooms 36 times over two hours, an official said.

The man, who lived alone in a city north of Tokyo, called an ambulance after suffering breathing problems at his home in January.

Paramedics rushed to his house but were told in turn by all 25 hospitals in the area that they could not accept the man because they did not have enough doctors or any free beds, a local city official said, adding some institutions were contacted more than once.

The ambulance eventually made a 20 minute drive to a hospital in neighbouring Ibaraki prefecture, but the man was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. The cause of death has not been made public :: Read the full article »»»»

UN Scraps Gaza Marathon, Hamas Refuses to Allow Female Runners

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency – UNRWA – the United Nations most prevalent agency in Palestine has cancelled its annual marathon, after the territory’s Hamas party banned women from the race.

Hamas says allowing females to participate in the fund-raising event, scheduled for April, goes against Islamic tradition. This year’s marathon had a  record number of female runners registered to take part.

The United Nations Agency had planned the marathon to raise money for the children of Gaza. Hamas apparently liked the idea of the money, but it didn’t like the idea of women stepping out from behind the kitchen-sink.

On the eve of International Women’s Day, this stance taken by Hamas can only be viewed as backward thinking, regrettable :: Read the full article »»»»

FOLLOW US, WE’RE FAT!

I’ve been wondering for a while just how long it would take for Obesity to move from being a medical issue to a social one, it seems we are right now on that cusp. Obesity has had so much bad publicity - deservingly so – over the past 5 years that the obese are striking back, no longer satisfied with the social stigma, and  often unable to lose the weight, the obese are becoming a large majority.

Fat activist Jackie Wykes recently posted a volatile question via theconversation.edu.au, asking How Anti Obesity Campaigns Re-inforce Stigma. Ms Wykes says “By focusing on weight as the problem and weight loss as the solution, social and economic inequalities are made invisible.” I’d reckon that in this country at least – and the world generally –  supermarkets would disagree entirely, never have groceries – fresh included – ever been so inexpensive, there is literally NO excuse today for BAD EATING HABITS!

According to Ms Wykes, health disparities between groups are blamed on individuals for not making healthy choices, ignoring the ways that the choices available to comfortably middle-class white Australians are often very different to those available to people on low incomes, to recent immigrants, or to Indigenous Australians.

This rhetoric clearly scirts the issue – yes obese people have rights, more rights than drug addicts, less than breast cancer patients, and about the same as rights as smokers –  in my mind the formula is pretty simple, EAT LESS! If you wish to make the argument complicated - it’s still diet based for the majority of obesity – then EAT CAREFULLY! :: Read the full article »»»»

China Questions Australia’s Asylum Seeker Policy

The Chinese government has raised Australia’s asylum seeker policy at human rights talks in Canberra. Representatives from the Australian and Chinese governments meet every year for human rights talks.

The vice-minister of China’s foreign affairs department, Cui Tiankai, said he raised human rights concerns on Australia’s Indigenous affairs record and the issue of asylum seekers.

“Indeed, we raised the question of refugees to the Australian side,” Mr Cui said, speaking through an interpreter.

Mr Cui said Australia’s representatives provided some explanations on the asylum seeker crisis, but he did not elaborate further. He said Australia and China hold different views on human rights, but both nations need to respect the other’s position :: Read the full article »»»»

Mother and Children Beheaded in Afghani Honour Killing

A 30-year-old woman and her two children have been beheaded in Afghanistan’s east, police said, in what they described appeared as the latest in a rapidly growing trend of so-called honour killings. Officers investigating the case described it as an honour killing, a phrase used to describe the murder of mostly women and girls accused of sullying a family’s reputation.

Afghan women have won back some basic rights in education, voting and work since the severe rule of the Taliban was toppled just over a decade ago, although fear now mounts that freedoms will be traded away as Kabul and Washington seek talks with the Islamist group to secure a peaceful end to the war.

Police said they suspected the former husband of committing the horrific crime. According to a local police officer, the husband barged into the victims home – in the capital of Ghazni province – and murdered her, as well as their eight-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter :: Read the full article »»»»

South Korea Firms Plan to Re-start Scientific Whaling

26 years after a global moratorium on commercial whaling was put in place, South Korea’s decision to resume hunting whales for scientific research has dismayed environmental campaigners and stunned other members of the International Whaling Commission.

South Korea’s plans to start a so-called scientific whaling program have been widely condemned by politicians and environmental groups. South Korean delegates confirmed the plan to kill whales in coastal waters at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Panama this morning, saying they wanted to start hunting minke whales under a loophole that allows the killing of whales for scientific research.

They said fishermen had been calling for the whales to be killed because “an increasing number of minke whales are eating away large amount of fish stocks which should be consumed by human being.” At the sometimes heated talks, South Korea said it would announce later how many whales it would kill and when, but insisted that it did not need foreign approval.

Whale meat remains highly popular along the east coast of South Korea, which maintained a large whaling fleet based in the southeastern port of Ulsan until the moratorium on commercial whaling was put in place in 1986. Last year, South Korean fishermen accounted for 21 out of the 23 cases of illegal whaling reported to the IWC :: Read the full article »»»»