eco-backpacker.com

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

An unnamed Polish man, 35, is being treated at a hospital in London, England after he cut off his penis with a knife at Zizzi’s pizza restaurant on Strand Street in the city of Westminster.

“We were called at 9.00 p.m. on Sunday to a restaurant on the Strand to reports of a man in possession of a knife. Officers attended to discover a man believed to be 30-40 years old suffering from an injury. He was taken to a south London hospital in a stable condition. No one else was injured and his injuries are believed to be self inflicted,” said a Scotland Yard spokesperson.

Police had to use CS tear gas on the victim in order to subdue him to get him to the hospital to receive medical attention.

Witnesses say that the man came into the restaurant, picked a knife up off the floor of the kitchen and then got onto a table and cut off his penis.

“At around 9 p.m. on Sunday, a man walked into the Zizzi restaurant on The Strand, down the stairs to the basement restaurant area and tried to enter a kitchen. Members of staff stopped him, at which he ran into a second kitchen area. The man then picked up a kitchen knife and slashed himself across the wrist and groin areas before running back into the restaurant, where he continued to stab himself,” said a spokesperson for the restaurant.

Surgeons are attempting to reattach his organ in what doctors call the first time this kind of surgery has been performed in the UK. It is not yet known if the operation was successful.

“If it doesn’t take, then you would have to re-amputate it. Attaching the penis is a very long, complex and painstaking operation,” said Francis Chinegwundoh, a urologist at St Bartholomew’s Hospital which is located in London. Chinegwundoh also said that that the victim will not feel his penis and it will not be possible for him to maintain an erection unless he uses a special machine, even if the operation were a success.

Monday, March 25, 2013

In February, Japanese herpetologists Kanto Nishikawa, Masafumi Matsui (of the Kyoto University), and Tao Thien Nguyen (of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology) discovered Ziegler’s crocodile newt in Vietnam. The new species, called Tylototriton ziegleri, is characterised by a unique morphology, most noticeably the rough skin. The researchers noticed the new set of species features when examining a specimen in National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo and confirmed the species after a field study and DNA analysis.

On February 18, the researchers successfully published the paper at Current Herpetology,published by the Herpetological Society of Japan.

Masafumi Matsui asked Kanto Nishikawa to identify the species from the museum. After a discussion with Tao Thien Nguyen, younger brother of T. Q. Nguyen, co-author of an existing Tylototriton vietnamensis species, Kanto Nishikawa identified the species as a new one.

Last Friday, Wikinews interviewed the research team about the study.

((Wikinews)) What is most particular in the new species morphology?

Kanto Nishikawa: Very rough skin.

((WN)) What kind of environments do the newts live in?

KN: Secondary and primary forest, near wet land.

((WN)) What do the newts eat?

KN: Probably small invertebrates, like earthworms, insect, and snails…

((WN)) What equipment was used during the research?

KN: Calipers for measuring specimens, DNA sequencer and PC for molecular analysis.

((WN)) What were the roles of the people involved in the research? What activity was most time-consuming?

KN: Collecting in the wild, analysis of data, and getting research permission.

Tao Thien Nguyen: I am also co-author of paper.

TTN: I was conducted survey in Hagiang and Cao Bang provinces during two year 2010 and 2011. I collected total 10 samples of Tylototriton in the nature habitat for our research,

TTN: I like Nikon camera very much and the photos taken by Nikon D300 body with Macro-len 60:2.8,

((WN)) Who did you have to get research permission from?

KN: From local government or national museum where Mr. Tao belongs to. We need many permissions not only for conducting research, but also exporting (= borrowing) specimens. This is common for researchers.

((WN)) What was the purpose of the field study? Is an alive individual required for DNA analysis, for species description and depiction, or for something else?

KN: Yes, for collecting alive one for DNA, and compiling information on habitat, ecology, breeding sites of the species.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

The Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met the leaders of Colombia, Venezuela and Spain, in Ciudad Guyana, 500 km (311 miles) from Caracas, in Venezuela, Tuesday, March 29.

The regional summit aimed to improve the diplomatic relations between Colombia and Venezuela, that had been shaken after the arrest of the FARC communist member Rodrigo Granda, in December, last year.

The following leaders were present at the meeting: the President of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe Velez; the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero; the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez; and the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

During the summit, the Brazilian president defended the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and he criticized indirectly the government of the United States for his opinions in relation to Chávez. According to Lula, South America is capable of taking care of its own problems.

Lula said: “We do not accept defamations against our “companheiros” (comrades). We do not accept insinuations against comrades. Venezuela has the right to be a sovereign country, to take its own decisions”. Lula also added that he is not afraid of doing this affirmation in “any place of the world”.

The US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was in Brazil on March 22 and he said that he was very worried about the political situation in Venezuela. Venezuela is buying weapons and warlike material in great quantity and Washington is considering the country a harmful influence in the region. Recently Venezuela announced that it would buy 100,000 AK-47 rifles.

Lula also said:”I believe that Venezuela has the right to be a sovereign country, of making its own decisions and, at the same time, Venezuela does not need to be accused of things that those who are with you know that this is not part of your thought nor of your behavior.”

“There is^[sic] many people talking badly about us in the world”, he added.

The Venezuelan President did a calmer speech for the US: “We are not here to cause problems to anybody, for any reason. We were called to form this new geopolitical map, without confrontation with nobody (…) because it is convenient for us and all: it is convenient for the investors, for international businessmen, for national businessmen and for the United States themselves.”

Chávez and Lula both denied any involvement between their governments and the FARC guerrilla.

The Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Zapatero said: “This is a meeting for the dialogue and the cooperation between free and democratic nations that want the advance of their people”.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The United Stated Department of Justice has asked for corruption charges against former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens to be dropped because evidence was withheld from the defense team by the original prosecutors. The Justice Department has stated that they will not retry Stevens.

In a statement, US Attorney General Eric Holder said, “After careful review, I have concluded that certain information should have been provided to the defense for use at trial. In light of this conclusion, and in consideration of the totality of the circumstances of this particular case, I have determined that it is in the interest of justice to dismiss the indictment and not proceed with a new trial.”

Stevens was convicted in October on seven felony counts of lying on senate disclosure forms about gifts, largely in the form of free renovations to his home, received from an oil service company; his conviction is thought to have been a large factor in his November electoral defeat to former Anchorage mayor Mark Begich, the current junior Senator from Alaska. Stevens immediately appealed his conviction and has maintained his innocence.

The prosecution case has met with a number of procedural difficulties, with US District Court judge Emmet G. Sullivan holding the prosecution in contempt in March for failing to turn over documents concerning an FBI whistleblower’s reports of mishandling of the case. The Justice Department has since replaced the case’s prosecutors, and the allegations of misconduct have held up sentencing from the original convictions.

The filed papers indicate that notes were never turned over from an interview that has the oil contractor estimated the house renovation for far less then he specified at trial.

The original trial team was removed, but in the end Attorney General Eric Holder thought it would be best if the case was dropped. NPR’s source indicate that Holder wish to forcefully transmit that prosecutorial misconduct will not be tolerated. The trying prosecutors are under investigation by the Justice Department for their conduct in the matter.

Stevens, now 85, served as Alaska’s Senator from 1968 to 2009.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

A freighter hit a fishing boat around midnight on Sunday morning in the Gulf of Suez in the Red Sea. Of the 40 Egyptian fisherman on board, thirteen are dead and thirteen more missing.

Survivor Al Sayyed Mohamed Arafat told local media he jumped from the fishing boat, named Badr al-Islam, as the container ship approached. He says he hung onto a wooden crate for four hours before rescue. Local authorities have promised compensation to each survivor.

A vessel, flagged in Panama, suspected to be involved in the collision has been detained by the military. The army said yesterday one victim raised the alarm by phone and the military sent four boats and a helicopter to commence search and rescue off the Gabal al-Zayt coastline.

A plane has since joined the search. The military say the fishing boat lacked safety equipment for emergency communications.

The detained ship was found south of the Gulf, near the port of Safaga. It was carrying 220 tonnes of cargo according to the General Authority for the Red Sea Ports.

Thursday, October 22, 2020

2020 Melbourne Lord Mayor candidate Wayne Tseng answered some questions about his campaign for the upcoming election from Wikinews. The Lord Mayor election in the Australian city is scheduled to take place this week.

Tseng runs a firm called eTranslate, which helps software developers to make the software available to the users. In the candidate’s questionnaire, Tseng said eTranslate had led to him working with all three tiers of the government. He previously belonged to the Australian Liberal Party, but has left since then, to run for mayorship as an independent candidate.

Tseng is of Chinese descent, having moved to Australia with his parents from Vietnam. Graduated in Brisbane, Tseng received his PhD in Melbourne and has been living in the city, he told Wikinews. Tseng also formed Chinese Precinct Chamber of Commerce, an organisation responsible for many “community bond building initiatives”, the Lord Mayor candidate told Wikinews.

Tseng discussed his plans for leading Melbourne, recovering from COVID-19, and “Democracy 2.0” to ensure concerns of minorities in the city were also heard. Tseng also focused on the importance of the multi-culture aspect and talked about making Melbourne the capital of the aboriginals. Tseng also explained why he thinks Melbourne is poised to be a world city by 2030.

Tseng’s deputy Lord Mayor candidate Gricol Yang is a Commercial Banker and works for ANZ Banking Group.

Currently, Sally Capp is the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the Victorian capital. Capp was elected as an interim Lord Mayor in mid-2018 after the former Lord Mayor Robert Doyle resigned from his position after sexual assault allegations. Doyle served as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne for almost a decade since 2008.