Christmas, Good News and Chikungunya

For those of us who are not EU citizens, and who have travelled through Europe in the past, the recent extension of the Schengen agreement is a god-send.

From Friday 21st of December 2007 the EU's Schengen agreement allowing passport-free travel for non-EU citizens has been expanded to include nine more countries.

Twenty-four of the EU's 27 member states are now participants in the agreement after the new entrants, mainly Baltic and eastern European countries, lifted travel restrictions.

After sawing through a barrier on Slovakia's border with Austria, Slovak prime minister Robert Fico said: "From midnight tonight you can travel 4,000km from Tallinn in Estonia to Lisbon in Portugal without any border controls."

No more need to worry about applications to a consulate or an embassy for a visa MONTHS before leaving home, no more customs and passport controls at each border, no more queues when crossing borders by car or camper van and no more interruptions to one's sleep when travelling by train as customs and passport control officers wake you and demand that you show them your visa, your passport and of course if required open your bags.

Of course for every good thing there is a down side and I am afraid that it has been left to Elisabeth Rosenthal of The New York Times to write a story that is less than "Good News" especially on Christmas eve:

Castiglione di Cervia, Italy - Panic was spreading this August through this tidy village of 2,000 as one person after another fell ill with weeks of high fever, exhaustion and excruciating bone pain, just as most of Italy was enjoying Ferragosto, its most important summer holiday.

Aided by global warming and globalization, Castiglione di Cervia has the dubious distinction of playing host to the first outbreak in modern Europe of a disease that had previously been seen only in the tropics.

The epidemic proved that tropical viruses are now able to spread in new areas, far north of their previous range. The tiger mosquito, which first arrived in Ravenna three years ago, is thriving across southern Europe and even in France and Switzerland.

Now it is winter in Castiglione di Cervia, near freezing as the sun went down on a recent evening and Christmas lights glowed across the piazza.

There are no mosquitoes now. But dozens of residents still suffer from arthritis, a known complication of chikungunya.

But the biggest mystery is whether chikungunya will emerge here next summer. In the tropics, it is a year-round disease, since the mosquitoes breed continually.

But the virus can winter over in mosquito eggs, too, and no one knows if there are reservoirs of sleeping eggs in some pool of water in Italy.

With climate change at hand, Dr. Bertollini said, chikungunya will surely be back somewhere in Europe again."

Never one to consider national borders, bacteria and insects have always been the bane of of those people whose responsibility it is to control the spread of disease.

Quarantine and health authorities are likely to have their jobs made even more difficult by the decision to remove all travel restrictions among EU member countries by non Eu citizens.

Recently in Australia there was an outbreak of Equine Influenza which devastated many of the industries that depend on horses. Millions of dollars were lost and lives ruined.

What has been happening in Italy is, I sadly predict, just a foretaste of things to come.

Does this mean that we should be concerned and take out 'insurance' in the form of immunization where possible? Absolutely unless the risks from the immunization outweigh the risk of catching a deadly disease.

Does it mean we should not travel?

Hardly, - what it does mean is that we should now start to think about taking the precautions in Europe that we would previously have reserved for more tropical climates. Above all to ensure that we take with us copious quantities of insect repellent that is guaranteed to be effective in tropical climates.

Europe simply is not what it used to be!

I wonder if it is just me or . . . .

I don't know about anyone else, but reading the news lately, I have been struck by the speed with which there are news stories that are starting to abound that worry the hell out of me.

Let me give you a few instances:

US missile shield 'could spark Russian missile strike'

"The Russian army's chief of staff has accused the West of playing politics with European arms control and warned that the launch of US interceptor missiles could trigger a Russian missile strike.

"Western states have deliberately turned an agreement on European arms control into an instrument to achieve political aims" against Russia, Yuri Baluyevksy said at a press conference broadcast on state television.

Russia on December 12 walked away from the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, a key Cold War agreement that limits the stationing of troops and heavy weapons from the Atlantic coast to Russia's Ural mountains.

General Baluyevsky criticised the NATO alliance's eastward expansion to the Russian border but said Russia had "no plans for massing troops", despite now having the freedom to do so after suspending its adherence to the treaty.

Russia said it pulled out of the CFE because of the failure of 26 NATO members to ratify the revised 1999 version of the treaty."

Then of course there is:

Japan shoots down missile in milestone test

"The shoot-down marked a success for a shipboard detection and tracking tool called Aegis built by Lockheed Martin Corporation and the Standard Missile-3 interceptor, produced by Raytheon Corporation.

The interceptor was fired by JS Kongo, the first of four Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force destroyers due to be outfitted to counter missiles that could carry chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.

The medium-range target missile was launched from a US range on Kauai.

The Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency (MDA) said Japan paid entirely for the $US55 million ($64 million) test.

US-Japanese missile-defence cooperation has grown greatly since North Korea fired a three-stage Taepo Dong 1 missile over Japan on August 31, 1998.

The Kongo will now return to Japan with its load of SM-3 interceptors to start defending against ballistic missile attacks."

US warns Iran after fuel shipment

"Washington says Iran has no need to continue its own nuclear programme now that Russia has started delivering fuel to the Bushehr power plant.

But Tehran says it will not stop the uranium enrichment process despite the threat of further UN sanctions.

It is the first time Iran has received a fuel delivery from Russia, which is building the Bushehr plant."

Iran could have nukes by 2010: Olmert

"Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert believes Iran will have the resources to create a nuclear weapon by 2010, despite a US intelligence report that it was not building an atomic bomb.

Mr Olmert has told his Cabinet that Iran was continuing to enrich uranium and develop ballistic missiles and that Israel would press the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to "expose Iran's nuclear weapons activity".

The US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), published last Monday, said Iran's nuclear weapons program was frozen in 2003 and remained on hold, contradicting an earlier report that the Islamic Republic was bent on building the bomb."

Now I don't know what you all make of this, but let me give you a version of reality that appeals to my twisted logic.

Japan is afraid of China and it's expanded economic and military prowess and of course is even more concerned about North Korea ever since it demonstrated that it had the bomb and the missile technology to carry them to Japan and elsewhere including Russia and China of course who are both within range.

So given that the Russians have issued a very simple comment that they would regard a missile defence shield in Europe as a threat to themselves the US and Japan have been testing all this stuff in the Pacific a place less likely to cause the Russian's the same degree of Angst. What it does for North Korea and China is a different story. What it does for China the USA and Taiwan is different again!

Meanwhile we have the Russians building a nuclear plant in Iran and the Iranians having the technology and missiles that are now capable of sending all sorts of mayhem across to Israel and of course their neighbours in the Arab states.

We have the Israelis who were attacked by Iraq when the Gulf War was happening and who just happened to get the first of the missile interceptors that were then available when the equivalent of the WW2 V2 rockets which contained Iraq's warheads slammed into Israel. Now that the USA has - through its proxy in Japan managed to successfully test another interception system for more sophisticated ballistic missiles than the Iraqis ever had, it is not surprising that both China and Russia are worried about what this will mean in their near neighbourhoods.

I would NOT be at all surprised if the Israelis would actually ask for some of the Aegis detection and tracking tools built by Lockheed Martin and the Standard Missile-3 interceptors, produced by Raytheon Corporation. What they are then likely to do is to somehow invest heavily to convert the technology of the Aegis system into something that can be used from a land based situation and or ask for Aegis equipped ships that they can base in both the Mediterranean or the Gulf from bases in or near Eilat. Here is unfortunately where the problems becomes greater.

Once you have systems like these land based or in the Mediterranean or the Gulf you have the possibility of a successful missile defence shield which they makes first strikes all the more possible as retaliation is no longer something that needs necessarily to be feared and MAD or Mutually Assured Destruction is no longer necessarily the scenario that it has been since the time when the cold war first started.

Before President Bush leaves office I am dreadfully fearful that he will be able to learn to pronounce "nuclear" as it should be pronounced and what's worse he may in fact increase the level of danger that faces us all at least several notches in intensity.

For those of us currently complaining about global warming let's also have a look at this range of activities by the US and their allies and ask some questions about whether these people really are serious about protecting us or actually setting into motion the bases for the next major outbreak of hostilities that will make global warming positively desirable in comparison with a likely nuclear wasteland.

Bosses and Estimates - sometimes they are the problem!

I was reminded the other day about the vagaries of project management by some people I met in a restaurant and I knew I had seen something that could assist them with their planning and developing a road map for the project they were involved with - alas I could not remember where I had seen it until today. I have now located the document I was trying to recall.

Please check out DILBERT and you will realise why YOUR project is doomed so long as you continue to have the same boss!

"Don't monkey with us!"

The ABC reports that two people in India - engaged in a property dispute have actually called on the Gods to assist them.

The dispute is about a temple dedicated to Ram and Hanuman. It was initially given by the province's king in the 1920s to the family of Manmohan Pathak, who has said he is the temple's rightful owner.

Local worshipper Puran Chandra Halder, successfully petitioned for the temple to be declared public property in 1987.

The dispute has gone on ever since and this time a judge in the eastern state of Jharkhand issued notices to the revered Ram, the most worshipped incarnation of one of the deities in the Hindu trinity, and to the monkey god Hanuman.

Court officers apparently went to the temple at the heart of the property dispute to deliver the summons, but found no one willing to accept the orders on behalf of the gods.

Not surprising really - it's bad enough to get caught up in the middle of a dispute that has been going on since 1987 - you would not want to anger the gods any further by claiming to speak on their behalf.

I wonder whether the Gods are just too busy these days off the Island of Bali trying to shake up the Climate Change conference with a small earthquake to attend to more irksome domestic matters?

Freedom of the Press

Having been motivated by the activities of Medecins Sans Frontieres I wanted to know if there was something similar that had been set up for Journalists and of course there is!

Reporters sans Frontieres

I started to read the documentation and some of the stories from around the world and was actually quite taken by all the campaigns that are happening to ensure that you and I are able to obtain access to news that is not necessarily stifled by regimes that oppose free communications and I was also quite taken by the campaigns that listed the number of journalists who had been thrown in gaol by one government or another.

Then in a fit of curiosity I opened the page relating to Australia. Here is what I found:

Area: 7,741,220 sq. km.
Population: 20,200,000.
Language: English.
Head of government: John Howard.

The John Howard government has continued to beef up its arsenal of anti-terror laws, some of which represent a threat to journalists’ capacity to protect their sources of information and to freedom of expression.

I am afraid it was at this point that I started to doubt - if not the sincerity, then certainly the value of the people who were doing the reporting for this site.

In the first place one of the main values of NEWS is that it is in fact NEWS and not yesterday's headlines in which you usually wrap fish heads!

Australia passed the 21 million mark for its population some time ago and the government changed well over a week ago. As for accuracy - one fact that has been pretty constant for quite a few years is the actual size of the country which is really 7617930km squared

I am amazed that any group that wishes to have some credibility in the world of journalism does not check facts and does not appear to update its site with an appropriate apology for what to me seems at best laziness and at worst careless negligence with the truth!

So the question for me at least is this - given the lack of accuracy about the data that I actually know something about and can easily check with reliable sources what reliance can I place on any of the other material that can be found on the site of these campaigners for press freedom?

I am afraid I have no idea and Yes I have written to them along the following lines:

"Hi,

I started off being impressed with your site and then in a fit of curiosity I explored your web page about the situation in Australia.

If you can't get the size of the country right, can't get the size of the population right and don't actually keep up with the reality that the government changed at least a week ago then I am afraid that reliance on your reporting about other matters tends to lose credibility!

It's a shame really - I was hoping to find a place where I could rely on some unvarnished facts!

Hope you will treat these comments in the way in which journalists should react - by hanging your heads in shame, issuing an apology for the outdated and inaccurate reportage and then correcting the offending page! "

After all one of the freedoms of the press is to be able to write to the editor and tell him/her what you think of the content of the publication!

Australia to lead the fight on Global Warming?

Well, nothing quite so spectacular really - however the latest headline from the ABC suggests that our native species are among the most ecologically advanced in the world.

Did you know for example that kangaroos do NOT contribute to global warming?

Thanks to special bacteria in their stomachs, kangaroos' flatulence contains no methane and scientists want to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep who emit large quantities of the harmful gas.

While the usual image of greenhouse gas pollution is a billowing smokestack pushing out carbon dioxide, livestock passing wind contribute a surprisingly high percentage of total emissions in some countries.

Queensland Government senior research scientist Athol Klieve says 14 per cent of emissions from all sources in Australia are from enteric methane from cattle and sheep.

"If you look at another country such as New Zealand, which has got a much higher agricultural base, they're actually up around 50 per cent," he said.

Researchers say the bacteria also makes the digestive process much more efficient and could potentially save millions of dollars in feed costs for farmers.

"Not only would they not produce the methane, they would actually get something like 10 to 15 per cent more energy out of the feed they are eating," Dr Klieve said.

Not even the farmers are laughing at this one!

Just imagine if Australia could sell Kangaroo bacteria to the world's farmers as a way in which THEY can contribute to lowering global warming? What an export item THIS would be!

Check it out!

There are numerous sites around the world that people can turn to when they want to find information on the Web.

If there is one message that needs to be heeded by anyone and everyone it is that the Internet presents a yellow light to all traffic. Caution is what is represented by this signal. Caution and careful consideration of the sources and the reliability of the information which is being provided.

If you are asking why on earth I would wish to provide this comment today of all days then I have tell you that it stems from a letter I received this morning from a very well meaning stranger.

Having apparently read my blog contents about Oesophageal cancer and one person's journey with this illness, this person was kind enough to let me know that I appear to have overlooked a whole raft of information relating to non mainstream treatments and modalities. He then went on to provide, what I am certain was well intended assistance, in the form of links to various sites and the titles of books written about a whole host of different remedies for cancer.

Naturally, being well disposed to anyone who may actually read my blogs and get some value from them, not to mention someone who wants to help, I immediately replied to the commentator with my thanks for their concern and with even more thanks for the information.

I then went on to suggest that it was NOT because I was negligent that nothing much about alternative treatment modalities had been published on my sites. The truth of the matter is, I explained, that I have not actually seen any EVIDENCE of the success or otherwise of the various remedies that had been suggested. More to the point not one of the treatments suggested actually dealt with the sort of cancer which interests me!

I was of course aware of the fact that there were claims that were being made, I was aware of the fact that drug companies and indeed perhaps the entire medical establishment could have such a stake in the current treatments that are available that they actively resist any findings that suggest something new and NOT within their control could possibly work. I was also aware that some drug companies had been accused of actually faking some of their research and that others had hidden information about what they have found in the course of their research to
try and ensure that they sold sufficient quantities of their drugs to at least recoup their investments in research. None of this however has meant that I was totally convinced by any conspiracy theory that everyone involved had no interest in finding something new and more useful.

I was also concerned that my correspondent had not asked one of the more fundamental questions in his letter to me - namely - whether what's good for one cancer will actually work with another and more to the point whether what works for one human being will work the same way for any other.

Being I hope a rational person, I will investigate the links with which I have been provided. I will then consider what the information has to offer and also consider how accurate and reliable the information provided is and then finally whether the information is applicable to my personal situation.

When I have done all that - then I may actually take action on the results.

I guess what I am trying to say to everyone out there is really simple. Even if you have a life threatening illness (and I have) and even if there are offers of certain cures and better ways of doing something - neither rush to believe nor disbelieve.

CHECK IT OUT FIRST!

An now for the "Good News" - Just in time for Xmas

OK Hands up - how many of you voted for the Labor Party and the Greens in the last election? Are you happy with your choice?

You had better be - because the government that just left (exit stage right) knew what it was doing when it lost the elections.

Just look at the news today:

1. Worst balance of Trade figures in years;
2. Companies making a loss for the first time in a decade;
3. Petrol Prices through the roof;
4. The New PM (Rudd) announces that it looks like we are actually going to have a 1% blow out on the Kyoto Protocol targets which means that we will incur a 30% penalty if Rudd actually signs up to the treaty on behalf of Australia and THAT means that we will have even higher prices on a whole range of things!
5. The underlying interest rate is beyond the comfort level of the Reserve Bank which means that we can expect another rate rise in February and that means more mortgage foreclosures etc etc;
6. The public services can expect to have a 2% 'efficiency dividend taken off them which means that they will have to either fire some people, or more likely not take more people on to work for them as they have to pay higher than normal wages - thanks to the AWA deals they have signed up with staff and thanks to the fact that they can't get out of them until they expire. This means that those left in the public services will have to work harder for less.
   

In essence what we have is a demonstration that the Howard government KNEW that things were going to heck in a hand basket and so did as badly as possible in the polls so that they could BLAME the incoming government for all of the mess that they have left behind!

No doubt this will mean that as we move into another cycle of economic downturn and things get from bad to worse they will be able to sit on the side lines and moan about how inadequate the current group of politicians are AND actually have the gall to tell us all that they warned us - the voters, about electing inexperienced people to the jobs!

Just wait and see and then let me know if all of this unfolds as expected.

Meanwhile of course - those that WERE in charge are all melting away - no doubt to get some high priced and high power jobs elsewhere and minding their Ps and Q's just waiting for the next opportunity to stick their snouts into the trough of public funds while allowing the poor schmucks like the current opposition leader to bear the jibes of the new government before the next bloodbath in which those in power now will be thrown out and new "wunderkinder' found within the rank and file to make everything right again (with emphasis on the "right")

Ah politics what a bloody mess you are!