Blast rocks the Ukraine

On April 27^th, four explosions caused chaos in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk injuring at least 27 people including 9 children.

The first blast took place at 11:50 AM in a busy tram central where an explosive was concealed in a waste bin. The second device was ignited in a nearby theatre only forty minutes later and the third exploded fifteen minutes after the second in one of the city’s busiest parks. The last bomb exploded in the same area as the first at around 1:00 PM but caused no casualties.

“This is yet another challenge for us, for the entire nation,” President Viktor Yanukovych told BBC.

Despite the swift response from emergency personnel in the eastern Ukrainian industrial city,No information was released as to the possible perpetrators of the blasts. A similar series of explosions in eastern Ukraine in January last year were linked by officials to an attempt to extort money, according to the National Post

The City is home to the former Prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, who is now serving a prison sentence for abuse of power. According to BBC, Tensions are running high over the alleged mistreatment of Ms Tymoshenko. She was a leader of the pro-Western Orange Revolution in 2004 but her chief rival, Mr Yanukovych, won an election in 2010 and forged closer ties with Russia.

“I think the people who committed this brutal crime – are also accomplices to an attack on the image of our country ahead of the Euro-2012,” Ukrainian football federation head Hryhory Surkis, told the Vancouver Sun.

Ukraine will soon be the host alongside with its western neighbour Poland to the 2012 Euro soccer tournament which is supposed to take place between June 8 and July 1. But the bomb blasts are unsettling for Ukrainian authorities, who have expressed confidence they will be able to provide full security for the tens of thousands of European soccer fans expected to converge on the country in June and July, reported CBC.

Despite the confidence of Ukrainian authorities, some are questioning the origins of the unprovoked attacks. Deputy parliament speaker Mykola Tomenko, who is member of Tymoshenko’s party, suggested the blasts were orchestrated by the government in order to quiet Western criticism of the Tymoshenko case, reporter CBC.

Written by: Karl Ussakowsai

Spain sets unemployment record

The number of unemployment has reached a new record in Spain, leaving 5.64 million people unemployed.  According to Al Jazeera, “total unemployment has risen 1.5 per cent, from a level of 22.9 per cent of the labour force in the final quarter of 2011.”

Spain has the fourth largest economy in the Eurozone. It is just several notches above the “so-called junk status”.

“The country’s economic problems have become the epicenter Europe’s debt crisis in recent weeks as investors worry over Spain’s ability to push through austerity and reforms at a time of recession and mass unemployment.” According to The Telegraph.

It is Spain’s second recession within the last three years. It currently has the highest unemployment rate in the European Union and is expected to continue to increase later on in the year. “In the first three months of the year, 365,900 people in Spain lost their jobs,” according to BBC News.

“The government has also introduced drastic spending cuts designed to reduce its debt levels and meet deficit targets agreed with the European Union,” according to BBC News. To try and ease the problem, the new government has announced cutting back on severance pay and restricting inflation-linked salary increases. These tactics have angered unions to the point of protests and general strikes.

“The country’s economic problems have become the epicenter Europe’s debt crisis in recent weeks as investors worry over Spain’s ability to push through austerity and reforms at a time of recession and mass unemployment,” according to The Telegraph. There are fears that targets will not be met with the diminishing economy and angered population. Financial rescue might be a forced solution.

It will be difficult seeing as Spain’s economy is double the size of the economies of Ireland, Portugal and Ireland combined. “The other eurozone countries would struggle to muster enough money to rescue it,” according to The Telegraph.

“There are even concerns that France, the second-biggest eurozone economy, could face another downgrade from S&P after the presidential elections next Sunday,” according to The Telegraph.

Last Thursday night, Spain’s rating was cut two notches by Standard and Poor from an A to BBB+.

Written by: Maika Duperval

Slime with That?

McDonald’s and other known grocery stores find themselves in a slimy situation, after information was released earlier this month that an American scientist discovered  found Pink Slime in ground beef.

According to the Reuters website, the byproducts known as Pink Slime, which is a mixture of connective tissue, and fatty trimmings, are ground up and then disinfected with ammonia to remove E-coli and bacteria.

“It was under the radar,” microbiologist Gerald Zirnstein said.  “It’s cheating. It’s economic fraud.”

When Zirnstein made the discovery in 2002, he e-mailed the findings to a colleague. Once the information was publicly revealed in early March, he lost his job working as a government scientist in the U.S.

“I am really an involuntary whistleblower,” continued Zirnstein.

Medline Plus explains that ammonia is a toxic chemical found in Windex and other cleaning products, as well as pesticides and explosives. High exposure is a health hazard.

The Pink Slime itself is found in 70 per cent of U.S. store meat. There is a lack of evidence whether Canadian meat is treated the same way.

McDonald’s stated to Reuters they would no longer buy meat containing the Pink Slime, as the chain of restaurants was reportedly unaware.

“Imagine how happy an accountant is, you just turned dog food into what can potentially be your kids’ food,” famous chef Jamie Oliver said on his show, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.

CBS News announced that Wal-Mart, on the other hand, “will begin selling meat that doesn’t contain the additive. It did not say it would stop selling beef with the filler altogether.”

Unfortunately, as seen in the documentary Food Inc., Pink Slime isn’t the only issue when it comes to food.

One part of the film shows cameramen were forbidden from entering a barn, but farmers still admitted to injecting chickens with hormones to increase their size.

A study made at Cornell University shows the injected hormones have been linked to cancer in humans.

Reuters also stated the United States Department of Agriculture “approved the [Pink Slime]” to be put in pet food and cooking oil.

In an interview with The Gant Daily in Central Pennsylvania, Edward Mills, associate professor of dairy and animal science contradicts Zirnstein, saying Pink Slime is safe, the newspaper calling it, “lean, finely textured beef.”

“There was a significant amount of lean going to waste that now is recovered,” Mills said. “It is a low-cost source of very lean ground beef.”

Spokesperson from Giant Food Stores Chris Brand said, “Customers felt Pink Slime was not something that they wanted to purchase.

Written by: Karina Licursi

Syria bans Red Cross

On March 1, the Red Cross has been denied entry to the Baba Amro district of Homs, as Syrian officials resume their shelling of the battered city.

As Syrian officials claim that they are removing booby traps from the district, Unconvinced,  critics said that they are simply clearing the way for artillery to resume its bombardment of the district. A spokesperson for the Red Cross said they will not give up as negotiations with the capital continue. “We want to go inside for many reasons,” Hicham Hassan, ICRC public relations officer said of Baba Amro. “The first is to have a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation, and the second is always to bring in emergency assistance, including food, ambulances in order to evacuate people who need to be evacuated, who are wounded and sick.”

The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) was given permission to enter the country, but was stopped by Syrian officials. They claimed that land mines and improvised explosive devises have been planted by rebels in hopes of destroying military convoys passing in and out of the area. Rebel representatives told reporters that the army is lying to the ICRC and that there are no such conditions blocking them from entering the Baba Amro district, and that the army is simply trying to keep the ICRC from witnessing massacres of Syrian civilians and army defectors, according the Reuters.

The Syrian Army claims they are fighting “foreign backed terrorists” who have killed security officials and countless civilians. The Assad regime alleges that fighters aligned with rebels are from surrounding countries and are supported with arms and funding from Arab nations that call for Assad’s removal.  Fighting continues in the streets as rebels have been backed out of most of the city’s ruins. As most of the rebel command has fallen back into smaller towns and fled the province all together, many stragglers and rebels with families rooted in the district have stayed to protect what little ground they still hold.  There have been unconfirmed reports that rebels are being captured and executed by Syrian forces.

Ban Ki Moon, secretary general of the United Nations (UN), estimated that 7,500 civilians have been killed by the Syrian army since the uprising began almost a year ago. Russia and China have vetoed condemnation of Syrian government twice, stating that Western and Arab countries are trying to pick sides in a civil war,  and are hoping to have a ‘Libyan-style regime change’, according to Reuters.  Many remember October’s violent uprising of Libyan rebels who killed their president, Muammar Gaddafi, in the streets of his hometown, Sirte.

The bodies of Marie Colvin, an American reporter and Remi Oshlik, a french photographer have been handed over to Syrian authorities. The two were killed last month in an armored attack on an improvised medical and media center. The bodies were buried near the murder scene, before being exhumed and sent to Damascus for repatriation, according to CBC.

Reports indicate that mortar fire is also being concentrated onto the districts of Khaldiyeh, Bab Sbaa and Khader in Homs. Abu Hassan al-Homs, a doctor operation an improvised clinic in Khalidyeh said that “[Mortars] falling in the morning had become routine.” al-Homs has treated hundreds with lighter injuries from falling mortars, according to Associated Press. 

While the Red Cross have negotiating with officials, the bombardment of the city has resumed and pleas for help poured out of districts hardest hit. The ICRC waits at the borders, helping fleeing civilians and offering food and clean water to anyone who needs it.

Written by: Devon Walcott

The Synthetic Burger

This year, the world will experience the first burger that is lab grown. This burger will be made from stem cells, artificially grown fat and mixed blood by scientists in the Netherlands.

This project began to be a sausage project, using pig stem cells to create a lab-grown sausage.  Yet the project was scrapped due to his financer not being very fond of sausages.

According to MSNBC this burger cost £200,000 ($263,000) to make. The money was raised by an anonymous individual who made his Post’s burger dream come true.  Other investors were skeptical about the lab grown burger. They did not think that it would come to be a success.  “Most people don’t believe it’s ever going to happen,” Post Said.

According to The Guardian “Meat demand is going to double in the next 40 years and right now we are using 70% of all our agricultural capacity to grow meat through livestock,” Dr. Mark Post, head of physiology at Maastricht University said.

According to MSNBC U.N. figures show 30% of the Earth’s land is being used for animal farming. The demand for meat will double within the next 40 years.

This burger, if made properly tasting like a real burger, the lab-grown meat may become a premium product just like organic products have.

Questions rose if it is possible for vegetarians to eat this burger. According to MSNBC, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are already on board for the lab-grown burger since it is using the stem cells of the animals without killing them.

Though it is not hurting the animal itself, there is still an ethical issue on eating the burger if it ends up in supermarkets.

According to BBC News, the Vegetarian Society states that a vegetarian does not eat “any meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or crustacean, or the by-products of slaughter.”

“Just because the meat has been grown artificially doesn’t mean it is vegetarian,” Vegetarians International Voices for Animals (VIVA) said. VIVA also states that because vegetarianism and veganism is not a religion, the decision is left up the individual.

The burger is expected to be ready later in the Fall.

Written by:  Maika Duperval

H5N1 Virus Mutation

A mutation from the avian influenza H5N1 created by Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, is likely to be more dangerous than the Spanish flu should it be unleashed.

However, lack of consideration of mild cases has caused mass confusion on whether the virus is as fatal as predicted.

“The issue is that the current World Health Organization (WHO) figures are based upon laboratory confirmed cases which biases this to people who are sick enough to seek medical attention.”, said Richard Webby, associate member at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

A two-day meeting on Feb. 17 brought 22 flu researchers to an agreement that the studies should be published, but detailed research on the mutation has not been released as the United States fear it may fall into the wrong hands.  [ according to ? ]

“There is a preference from a public health perspective for full disclosure of the information in these two studies,” said Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general of health security and environment at the WHO.

The virus was manipulated in a way that it can only be transmissible through mammals or the air.

Fouchier claims he conducted the study to have a better understanding of the avian flu. [ according to ? ] Some symptoms of the virus described by PubMed Health are cough, fever, muscle aches, difficulty breathing, but Fouchier’s mutation could be much more severe.

The first case of H5N1 affecting humans was in Hong Kong in 1997. It has mostly affected those who eat raw foods, or who work with poultry—usually living in countries where health care is less accessible. [ source all your paragraphs. ]

“The scariest thing about infectious-disease research is that the most dangerous disease out there is the one you don’t know about,” Anna Mehler Paperny from the Globe and Mail, wrote.

Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said, “You could reduce the seriousness of this virus twentyfold and it would still exceed that of the 1918 Spanish flu,” which killed at least 50 million people worldwide.

A recent vaccine developed in Vietnam to protect against A/H5N1 and A/H1N1 has been tested on volunteers and is said to be affective.

Doctor Ananya Mandal from News-Medical.net wrote on Sunday, “If the WHO is seeing onlythose who get to the hospital, it’s likely that the number of people with the virus is higher. Researchers say that means the death rate would be lower.”

“It’s a very important public-health impact,” said Doctor Gary Kobinger from the University of Manitoba. “[But] we’d need to have the details.”

Written by: Karina Licursi

Jail Fire In Honduras

Three hundred and fifty-five people were left dead after the minimum-security prison in Comayagua, Honduras caught fire last Tuesday night.

Witnesses claim that the fire that spread throughout the prison was started by an inmate. The majority of the prisoners at the time of the fire were stuck behind bars and attempted to free themselves by all means. Those who survived said that their inmates tried to save themselves by jumping into showers or sinks as the fire tore through the prison, BBC reported.

The prisons in Honduras are all over their capacity. Comayagua prison alone has a capacity of 500 inmates and at the time of the fire contained around 800 inmates. Most of them at the time had never even been charged, let alone convicted, CBC reported.

The fire has raised the concern of overcrowded penitentiary facilities and their lack of adequate fundamental necessities in Honduras. According to CBC the prison has no medical or mental health care and the budget allows less than $1 per day per prisoner for food. Human rights groups have even chimed in with their disapproval of the prisoners lack of adequate sanitation, malnutrition and overcrowding, reported CNN.

“We are going to review the conditions in all the penitentiary centers to see how we can improve the overcrowding conditions that exist in many of our prisons,” Porfirio Lobo, the Honduran President, said.

In fact, Lobo has suspended the Comayagua prison administrators and the entire prison chain of command up to the national level, reported CNN.  Though the fire has left many families grieving, it has also brought about the awareness needed to fix the Honduras penitentiary facilities and avoid another tragic event such as this one.

“According to attorney general’s spokesman Melvin Duarte this is the world’s deadliest prison fire in a century,” CBC reported.

By Shauna Zilversmit

Call The Cyberpolice

Ya dunn goofed.

The Conservative government continues to feel the heat of multiple online attacks following Public Safety Minister, Vic Toews’ proposal of the Lawful Access Bill.

Popular online hacker group Anonymous has been releasing a slew of personal information about the Safety Minister, and are threatening to continue to do so if the legislation is not put to rest, according to the National Post.

The Conservative government claims that the purpose of the bill in question would be to have a better system in place against child predators on the web. The original proposal of the law stated that the government would be able to access Internet user’s personal information freely, without the possession of a warrant, according to The Globe and Mail.

The general population have not taken kindly to the announcement of the bill, with Internet-privacy advocates stating that the law would be an invasion of privacy of everyday Canadians.  Toews worsened the situation after he responded publicly to the reaction to the bill last week, by stating that those against the law were either with the Conservatives or “with the child pornographers,” according to the Globe and Mail.

Toews backed down from this statement, and publicly declared he was “prepared to accept their [the public’s] judgment,” according to The National Post.

Internet Advocacy group Open Media started up a petition, which now has over 100,000 signatures, against the legislation back in June 2011. According to the CBC, the group sees the law as “”warrantless wiretapping.”

“It’s a really poorly thought out bill, it’s really invasive, and frankly there’s no need for it,” OpenMedia.ca spokeswoman Lindsey Pinto said, according to The National Post. “It’s not something that’s going to be acceptable in Canadian society.”

According to CBC news, the proposed law already showed signs of a lack of support before being presented due to the failure of similar proposals in the past to make it through Parliament.

Those opposing the law have taken to the Internet to show their disapproval. According to CBC news, Twitter users decided to flood Toews with tweets describing small details of their lives.  #tellviceverything trended internationally and nationwide as word spread.

Citizens aren’t only worried about their privacy, but their pockets too. CBC reports that the lawful access bill could cost $80 million dollars to put into place. The money would be put into the installation of special equipment needed by Internet and telecommunications service providers to collect information, according to the CBC. Toews’ spokesperson would not provide the CBC with any other information.

Bernard Lord, president of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association said that not matter the costs, the government needs to know what they are getting themselves into. “”We want to make sure the government is fully aware of all the costs and that they fully compensate all the costs,” Lord said, according to CBC.

The president of the CWTA also added that it is not possible to know the full costs due to the fact that more changes will be made to the bill before it becomes an actual law, reported CBC.

The bill has not yet been passed, and the Conservatives have said that the bill will be directly sent to a parliamentary committee for review. Bills are usually sent after a second reading, however the immediate review of the bill suggests that the government is open to accepting various amendments to the bill.  This would be in order to find a solution that can be agreed upon, allowing the bill to be passed, according to the National Post.

While the prospect of a less severe bill being passed has calmed some, Internet users and advocacy groups like OpenMedia.ca do still prefer to see the scrapping of the legislation completely.

By Casandra de Masi

Mexican Meth

Fifteen tons of methamphetamine in pure powder form was seized by Mexican soldiers in the western state of Jalisco, the capital of Guadalajara, officials announced in a statement last Wednesday [ what is the actual date? Because the paper comes out this Thursday, people might think it’s two days from now, you know?

“It was about 13 million doses, worth over $4 billion — more than double the size of all meth seizures at the Mexican border in 2011 and equivalent to half of all meth seizures worldwide in 2009,” reported the New York Times.
After several anonymous tips from locals, soldiers discovered the synthetic drug at a ranch. This is believed to be the biggest amount ever found in Mexico, according to BBC.
“Reporters were shown barrels of white and yellow powder that filled three rooms. There were no people found on the ranch or arrests made, although it appeared 12 to 15 people worked there,” [ who quoted this? You can’t quote the source. If that’s the case, paraphrase.CBS reported.
The soldiers also found 4,575 liters of precursor chemicals and 2,400 kilograms of caustic soda [ what’s this ? ], according to the National Post. “This is a historic seizure,” General Gilberto Hernandez Andreu, military commander of the region, told the LA Times.

“Methamphetamine production has been rising in Mexico, and much of the increase is attributed to the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, headed by Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, who the U.S. Treasury Department calls the most powerful drug trafficker in the world,” [ same thing as your other CBS quote ]CBS reported.

The army statement did not say which Mexican cartel might have been responsible. However, Jalisco state has been considered the center of the Sinaloa’s methamphetamine trafficking for a while, according to CBS.

“A senior U.S. law enforcement official in Mexico said [it] was ‘probably Sinaloa’,” the Washington Post reported. “The official, who could not be named for security reasons, said Sinaloa may be moving into meth ‘to reduce its reliance on Colombian cocaine by flooding the market with meth’.” [ wait, who said what to who? ]

Eighty percent of the meth caught being smuggled into the U.S. is seized at the Mexican border, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center, CBS reported.

Officials in the United States and United Nations are concerned with the quantity of the seize because it illustrates the high level of organization and how efficient meth production has grown despite efforts to thwart the illegal industry, according to the New York Times.

“Seizures of this size [...] could mean one of two things,” Antonio Mazzitelli, the regional representative of the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime told the Washington Post. “On one hand, it may be a product that hasn’t been able to be sold, and like any business, when the market is depressed, stockpiles build up. [On the other hand], such large-scale production could suggest an expansion, an attempt by some Mexican groups, the most business-oriented I would say, to move into Latin American and Asian markets.”

“The big thing it shows is the sheer capacity that these superlabs have in Mexico,” Rusty Payne, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told the New York Times. “When we see one lab with the capability to produce such a mass tonnage of meth, it begs a question: What else is out there?”

Written by: Elyssa Stock

Are you Syria-sssss?

They don't even go here

Russia and China vetoed the United Nation’s (UN) resolution to take action in Syria against government brutality and corruption, after violence reached a high last Friday.

The unrest in Syria began in March of 2011, when protesters gathered in support of 15 young students who were arrested and tortured after having written “the people want the downfall of the regime.” This was the slogan that was popularized by the people’s uprisings in Tunisia, as well as Egypt, during The Arab Spring. The uprising, which began in the southern city of Deraa, quickly turned from peaceful demonstrations to radical protests, as the government security forces opened fire on the protesters on March 18, killing dozens, according to BBC.

As government brutality continued to ensue, protesters demanded that President Bashar al-Assad resign from power. Mr. Assad refused to comply with these demands, but agreed to make some reforms in his government. However, until the violence ceases, activists maintain that his words are empty, reported BBC.

The main opposition group to emerge from the uprisings, the Syrian National Council (SNC), in conjunction with the Arab League, has attempted to put an end to the government’s brutality and chaos with several failed peace initiatives over the last year. The League has aligned itself with the UN Security Council in an effort to help restore stability to Syria, though the Syrian government rejected all such initiatives, saying that they would compromise the country’s independence, according to BBC.

On Monday and Tuesday of last week, over 130 people were killed across the country. Then, on Friday, the deadliest incident to date occured as government forces attacked the city of Homs, leaving more than 200 dead, according to The Moscow Times.

The United Nation Security Council held a meeting on Saturday, calling member states to aid in stopping the importation of arms into Syria without resorting to an embargo. They also asked that they put an end to all violence and violations of human rights, including the removal of government troops form Syrian towns, and to take steps towards ensuring a free election, according to BBC.

Of all the Security Council Members, only Russia and China vetoed the amendment. Russia, who has strong military and economic ties with Syria, has also opposed past US and European Union efforts to take action in Syria, fearing military intervention, reported BBC.

According to The Moscow Times, Russia’s UN representative, Vitaly Churkin, said that those who supported the resolution were “calling for regime change, pushing the opposition towards power, and not stopping their provocation and feeding armed struggle.”

The other 13 Security Council Members voted in accordance to these amendments, including Morocco, the only Council nation who is part of the Arab League, reported The Moscow Times.

“[The veto] does not negate that there is clear international support for the resolutions of the Arab League,” Nabil al-Arabi, Secretary General of the Arab League, said in a statement at the conference on Saturday, reported The Jordan Times.

The US expressed their rage towards Russia’s veto at the conference on Saturday; Hilary Clinton called it a “travesty” according to The Guardian. “Any further bloodshed that flows will be on their hands,” United Nations ambassador Susan Rice said of Russia and China, reported The Moscow Times.

However, the SNC and Syrian activists will not give up, if the following tweets are anything to go by: “In the coming days, many Syrians are going to do a lot of soul-searching ultimately leading to a decision to support armed struggle” and “we have to depend solely on Syrians to liberate ourselves,” tweeted two Syrian activists following the news of the veto, according to The Guardian.

Written by: Sara Baron-Goodman