Healthcare Concerns

Archive for the ‘Top Stories’ Category

Spread across a chain of thousands of islands between Asia and Australia, Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population.

Ethnically it is highly diverse, with more than 300 local languages. The people range from rural hunter-gatherers to a modern urban elite.

Indonesia has seen great turmoil in recent years, having faced the Asian financial crisis, the fall of President Suharto after 32 years in office, the first free elections since the 1960s, the loss of East Timor, independence demands from restive provinces, bloody ethnic and religious conflict and a devastating tsunami.

Sophisticated kingdoms existed before the arrival of the Dutch, who consolidated their hold over two centuries, eventually uniting the archipelago in around 1900.

After Japan's wartime occupation ended, independence was proclaimed in 1945 by Sukarno, the independence movement's leader. The Dutch transferred sovereignty in 1949 after an armed struggle.

Long-term leader General Suharto came to power in the wake of an abortive coup in 1965. He imposed authoritarian rule while allowing technocrats to run the economy with considerable success.

But his policy of allowing army involvement in all levels of government, down to village level, fostered corruption. His "transmigration" programmes – which moved large numbers of landless farmers from Java to other parts of the country – fanned ethnic conflict.

Suharto fell from power after riots in 1998 and escaped efforts to bring him to justice for decades of dictatorship.

Post-Suharto Indonesia has made the transition to democracy. Power has been devolved away from the central government and the first direct presidential elections were held in 2004.

But the country faces demands for independence in several provinces, where secessionists have been encouraged by East Timor's 1999 success in breaking away after a traumatic 25 years of occupation.

Militant Islamic groups have flexed their muscles over the past few years. Some have been accused of having links with Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation, including the group blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people.

Lying near the intersection of shifting tectonic plates, Indonesia is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. A powerful undersea quake in late 2004 sent massive waves crashing into coastal areas of Sumatra, and into coastal communities across south and east Asia. The disaster left more than 220,000 Indonesians dead or missing.

“The FW de Klerk Foundation regrets that the comments that FW de Klerk made in his recent interview with Christiane Amanpour of CNN have been taken so unfairly out of context,” the foundation said in a statement Friday.

“The question that she asked related to the policies that he had supported when he was a young man — and his reply centered on his view that, though idealistic at the time, they had resulted in the unacceptable injustices of apartheid,” said the foundation, whose founder and chairman is de Klerk.

In the CNN interview, de Klerk would not back off his belief in the validity of the original concept of “separate but equal” nation states.

That remark provoked criticism, including on Twitter where some South Africans said de Klerk isn’t worthy of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize he shared with Nelson Mandela for ending South Africa’s apartheid regime.

Said de Klerk on CNN this week: “I don’t apologize for saying that what drove me as a young man, before I decided we need to embrace a new vision, was a quest to bring justice for black South Africans in a way which would not — that’s what I believed then — destroy the justice to which my people were entitled. My people, whose self-determination (was) taken away by colonial power in the Anglo-Boer War.”

That, de Klerk said, is how he was raised.

“And it was in an era when also in America and elsewhere, and across the continent of Africa, there was still not this realization that we are trampling upon the human rights of people. So I’m a convert.”

The foundation’s subsequent statement elaborated on de Klerk’s position, saying “there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the idea that the problems of territories that include different peoples should be addressed on the basis of territorial partition.

“This, after all, is what has happened in such societies all over the world — in the territorial divisions of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and more recently in Sudan. It is the solution that has long been advocated for Israel/Palestine,” the foundation said.

South Africa’s apartheid system was born out of “by the loss of the right of Afrikaners to self-determination in the Anglo-Boer War,” the statement said.

“However, as De Klerk pointed out, the National Party’s application of territorial partition was a complete failure because the territorial division was manifestly unfair (something that De Klerk opposed as a young politician),” the statement said.

“The Amanpour interview dealt with De Klerk’s views as a young man. He tried, as frankly as he could, to explain what motivated him at the time. What motivated him as a young man ceased many years ago to motivate him as a political leader,” the statement said. “Since the mid-eighties he has accepted that the policies that he supported as a young man were wrong and that there was not any possibility of justly settling South Africa’s complex problems on the basis of territorial partition.”

CNN’s Joe Sterling contributed to this report.

The employee, who declined to give his name, told CNN he would provide no further details about the manner and cause of death. Kennedy was 52.

The family released a statement saying, “We deeply regret the death of our beloved sister Mary, whose radiant and creative spirit will be sorely missed by those who loved her. Our heart goes out to her children who she loved without reservation.”

The Bedford Police Department earlier confirmed they were investigating a possible unattended death at an address owned by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Authorities found a deceased individual inside “an out building” on the property, police said in a statement.

Regarding her marital status at the time of her death, Mary Kennedy wasn’t divorced from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., her family attorney, Kerry A. Lawrence, told CNN.

Mary Richardson Kennedy was “a tremendously gifted architect and a pioneer and relentless advocate of green design who enhanced her cutting edge, energy efficient creations with exquisite taste and style,” Robert F. Kennedy’s family said in a statement.

She advocated finding a cure for food allergies and asthma and was a co-founder of the Food Allergy Initiative, which is the world’s largest private source of funding for food allergy research, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s family said.

“It is with deep sadness that the family of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. mourns the loss of Mary Richardson Kennedy, wife and mother of their four beloved children. Mary inspired our family with her kindness, her love, her gentle soul and generous spirit,” the husband’s family’s statement said.

The couple married in civil ceremony in 1994 when Mary Richardson, a designer, was six months pregnant, according to the Westchester County Journal News. One month prior to the wedding, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. divorced his first wife, Emily Black, the mother of his two oldest children, the newspaper reported.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent environmental lawyer who’s a professor at Pace Law School in White Plains, New York, is the third of 11 children born to Ethel and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated when campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968.

Details of the couple’s private lives were exposed after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed for divorce in Westchester County on May 12, 2010.

The next evening, according to police records, Bedford police responded to a 911 call. When police arrived at the Kennedy residence they found the couple in an argument over taking their four children to a carnival at St. Patrick’s School.

According to a “domestic incident” report filed by the officer on the scene, “Mr. Kennedy stated that his wife was intoxicated and was acting irrational so he took the children to the carnival to remove them from the situation.”

No one was injured, the report said.

Two days later, Mary Kennedy was arrested for driving while intoxicated. At the time, Bedford Police Lt. Jeff Dickans told CNN that Mary Kennedy was arrested around 9:15 p.m. on May 15, 2010. Dickans said that a Bedford police officer saw Kennedy’s 2004 Volvo swerving onto the curb of Greenwich Road in Bedford and asked her to pull over.

Kennedy had slurred speech, and a blood-alcohol content above 0.08 percent, the legal limit in New York. She was charged with driving while intoxicated.

Kerry Lawrence, Mary Kennedy’s family attorney, said the case resulted in a reduction to a violation, the criminal charge was dismissed and her driver’s license was suspended for 90 days.

A second arrest occured in August of the same year in the town of Pleasant Valley, in which she was charged with driving while impaired by prescription drugs, Lawrence said. Those charges were dismissed completely in July 2011 because all the drugs were prescribed and taken as her physician advised, the attorney said.

As a designer, Mary Kennedy specialized in green architecture, and in a book entitled “Kennedy Green House” and co-authored by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he describes how he and his wife restored their flooded, black-mold-infested home into an eco-friendly residence.

In the book, her husband wrote that Mary Kennedy had worked for the design firm Parish-Hadley and worked on the renovation of the Naval Observatory in Washington, the official residence of the U.S. vice president.

“We know from a history of this family, it’s very hard being a Kennedy, either being a blood Kennedy or being married to one,” Laurence Leamer, a Kennedy biographer, told CNN.

The government has ended a contract with welfare-to-work company A4e after deciding that continuing would be "too great a risk", it has said.

The scheme is aimed at getting people into a working routine if they need an additional "push" to find a job.

The Department for Work and Pensions has been auditing its commercial relationships with A4e after receiving an allegation against the company earlier this year.

Mr Grayling said: "While the team found no evidence of fraud, it identified significant weaknesses in A4e's internal controls on the Mandatory Work Activity contract in the South East.

"The documentation supporting payments was seriously inadequate, and in a small number the claim was erroneous. There was also a high incidence of non-compliance with other relevant guidance (including A4e's own processes).

"The process established prior to March fell significantly short of our expectations. As a result, the department has concluded that continuing with this contract presents too great a risk and we have terminated the Mandatory Work Activity contract with A4e for the South East."

Mr Grayling added that "contingency plans" were in place to ensure "continuity of support for participants".

But the company welcomed the "positive findings" of the Department for Work and Pensions' audit, and another by the Skills Funding Agency, saying: "Both confirmed they identified no evidence of fraud, systemic, attempted or otherwise, in relation to any audit completed of the contracts they hold with A4e."

Chief executive Andrew Dutton said: "These findings demonstrate what I have always maintained to be true – that there is no place for fraud at A4e and make it clear that A4e has strong controls around its flagship contract the Work Programme.

"Our immediate task is to further enhance our controls to cement our position as a trusted provider of front-line public services."

He added: "As a company, I recognise that we haven't got it right all of the time, but we are committed to taking responsibility for our mistakes and remedying them.

"No other provider has undergone such a thorough and forensic review of its contracts, and the positive outcome speaks for itself – this is huge reassurance for taxpayers and our customers."

A4e started in South Yorkshire more than 20 years ago to provide retraining to large numbers of Sheffield steelworkers who became redundant when the industry started to decline.

Its former chairman, Emma Harrison, was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron to be the government's "family champion" in 2010.

She resigned from that role, and the chairmanship, in February, saying she did not want the "media focus on me to be any distraction for A4e".

Dubai: An eight-year-old Dubai pupil is battling for his life, after being diagnosed with a brain tumour, and his family is uncertain about their ability to settle his growing medical bills.

After three surgeries within two weeks, Saurav Sunil, a grade three pupil at the Indian High School, remains on the ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit at Rashid Hospital.

Devastated by Saurav’s condition, father Sunil Kumar, 39, and mother Vijayalakshmi, 35, who is expecting, are hoping for the best. So are Saurav’s classmates and his teachers at the school.

With the father being the sole breadwinner of the family, earning Dh4,800 a month working as a salesman, Saurav’s growing medical bills are a major concern for the family. The bills have exceeded Dh70,000, according to the family. "He was a hyperactive eight-year-old boy, just like any other boy of his age. It is heartbreaking to see him confined to his hospital bed this way," said Kumar.

Article continues below

Check out CNN affiliate WREG-TV in Memphis, Tennessee, for information on the shootings.

After two such shootings this month, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is asking for the public’s help to find the person.

The agency was receiving leads and processing forensic evidence, bureau spokesman Warren Strain said Tuesday.

John Champion, district attorney for the state’s 17th District, said there were no good descriptions of a vehicle.

“Both of the shootings occurred in very remote areas,” Champion told HLN’s Vinnie Politan.

Authorities were asking citizens to be careful if they are pulled over and feel uneasy.

They advise drivers to call 911 and verify that a legitimate officer is pulling them over or drive to a well-lit, crowded place before stopping, actions permitted under Mississippi state law.

“The concern is that someone is posing as a law enforcement officer and that is how these vehicles end up on the side of the road,” said MBI director Lt. Col. Larry Waggoner.

How you can make sure an officer is not an imposter

The first shooting occurred on May 8. Thomas Schlender, 74, was found dead about 1:30 a.m. in his car in the median of southbound Interstate 55 in Panola County.

On Friday, Lori Anne Carswell, 48, was found dead outside her car on the shoulder of Mississippi State Highway 713, in Tunica County, about 2:15 a.m.

The shootings took place about 55 miles apart, and the victims did not know each other, authorities said.

CNN’s Rick Martin contributed to this report.

Until now.

In what experts consider nothing short of a miracle, a Polish oil company worker recently discovered the plane believed to have been flown by missing Flight Sgt. Dennis Copping. And almost 70 years after the accident, it’s extraordinarily well-preserved.

The fighter’s “state of preservation is incredible,” British military historian Andy Saunders told CNN. “The thing just landed there in the desert and the pilot clearly got out. … It is a complete time capsule really (and) an exceptionally rare find. These things just don’t happen.”

Most of the plane’s fuselage, wings, tail and cockpit instruments remain intact. For safety reasons, Egyptian officials have removed its ammunition and guns.

See additional photos

Copping’s plane — authorities have not confirmed his identity, though it has been widely reported in British newspapers — crashed after the 24-year-old pilot got lost while trying to fly it from one RAF base to another for repairs to its front landing gear, which wouldn’t retract.

Copping, part of the RAF’s Egyptian 260 Squadron, was trying to get the American-built plane back in fighting condition in the run-up to what would prove to be the pivotal Battle of El Alamein.

The young pilot, according to Saunders, apparently became disoriented during the flight and headed in the wrong direction. Another RAF pilot flying nearby “tried all sorts of things” to get his attention, but Copping “bizarrely” ignored a series of warnings, Saunders said.

By the time Copping realized his mistake, he was too low on fuel to turn around. Several pieces of evidence at the crash site — including a parachute believed to have been used as shelter from the sun — indicate the strong probability Copping survived the landing. He almost certainly could not, however, survive the blazing Sahara heat for long.

Copping “would have stayed by the aircraft initially,” Saunders noted. While the plane’s glass valve radio was likely knocked out of commission by the crash, “the parachute gives him shelter and a means to be identified from the air. The guy also would have had a little silver signaling mirror to attract passing aircraft and a pistol with a limited number of flares.”

Why would Copping leave the wreckage? “Maybe he got desperate when he saw nobody was coming for him, and thought (the) only way to survive was to walk out” and look for help, Saunders speculated.

RAF pilots in North Africa at that time didn’t have much in terms of rations. Copping’s supply would have been very limited, assuming he had food or water at all.

Pilots were “flying with very basic life support systems,” Saunders said. “His chances of survival were not good.”

As Copping’s story becomes known, British authorities are hoping to bring his plane back to the United Kingdom and put it on display at the RAF Museum in London. Museum representatives are working with the British Embassy in Cairo and Britain’s Ministry of Defence on a possible recovery operation.

“It’s an incredible story,” said museum spokesman Michael Creane. “It’s a perfect story in so many ways. It’s incredible the plane sat there in this untouched part of the world for so long. … We’re dedicated to recovering it as fast as we can. This would be a fantastic asset.”

Named Pleasant Island by its first European visitors, the former British colony of Nauru is the world's smallest republic.

The tiny Pacific island once generated a per capita income out of proportion to its size. But the source of this wealth – phosphates – is nearing exhaustion, leaving the islanders facing an uncertain future.

While the mining of 1,000 years' worth of fossilised bird droppings has been lucrative, Nauru relies on imports for almost everything – from food and water to fuel.

Moreover, recent financial crises have precipitated a slide into bankruptcy and a dependence on aid. The country had to sell off its assets in Australia to pay off a multi-million dollar debt to a US corporation.

Nauru's government has tried to develop alternative industries, including tourism and offshore banking. A world body, set up to fight money-laundering, removed Nauru from its list of uncooperative states in late 2005.

In 2001 Nauru signed an agreement with Australia to accommodate asylum seekers on the island, in return for millions of dollars in aid. However, Australia ended its controversial "Pacific Solution" of detaining asylum seekers on islands in 2008.

Australia has sent financial experts to Nauru to help it overcome its problems.

Dubai In a city that has some of the world’s best bars and nightclubs, choosing where to spend your wages is not the problem. It’s getting into them that’s an issue.

With strict door policies, minimum spends in the thousands and selective screening by bouncers, not every expat gets equal access rights to these high-end venues. At some of Dubai’s super-clubs, if you aren’t hoity toity enough, you’re slapped with the minimum spend rule, as is the case at a prominent new nightclub, a branch of one of London’s favourite clubs, that opened on Shaikh Zayed Road last December.

“
Minimum spend for a small group would be Dh5,000. A larger group of eight to 10 people would have to ensure a minimum spend of Dh7,000, while groups larger than 10 need to have a minimum spend of at least Dh10,000 for the night

Club statement to XPRESS

In an e-mail to XPRESS, a spokesperson for the club states that "guests are required to be in mixed groups of couples." Guests need to make reservations in advance or put themselves on the club’s guestlist. "[Although] priority is always given to table reservations, a guestlist or table reservation does not guarantee entry," says the spokesperson. "Entry will be at the discretion of the management to decide upon the appropriate guests to enter the club."

What the policy doesn’t talk about is the minimum spend behind those reservations.

Article continues below