A hi-tech bracelet could soon be helping civil rights and aid workers at risk of being kidnapped or killed. When triggered, the personal alarm uses phone and sat-nav technology to warn that its wearer is in danger.
Warnings are sent in the form of messages to Facebook and Twitter to rally support and ensure people do not disappear without trace.
The first bracelets are being given out this week and funding is being sought to make many more.
Smart bracelet protects civil rights and aid workers
CIA Assassinated Pakistan Foe To Get Drone Access
Nek Muhammad knew he was being followed. On a hot day in June 2004, the Pashtun tribesman was lounging inside a mud compound in South Waziristan, speaking by satellite phone to one of the many reporters who regularly interviewed him on how he had fought and humbled Pakistan’s army in the country’s western mountains.
He asked one of his followers about the strange, metallic bird hovering above him.
Less than 24 hours later, a missile tore through the compound, severing Mr. Muhammad’s left leg and killing him and several others, including two boys, ages 10 and 16. A Pakistani military spokesman was quick to claim responsibility for the attack, saying that Pakistani forces had fired at the compound. That was a lie.
The Food Industry’s Overuse Of Salt Contributes To Almost 100,000 American Deaths Every Year
In a new study published in the online edition of the British Medical Journal, researchers write that a 50 percent reduction in daily salt intake “could prevent approximately 100,000 deaths from heart attack and stroke in the United States every year.”
Curbing salt intake by that high a margin is certainly a mean feat — but not because Americans are saturating their food with sodium. Rather, study authors suggest that the real culprits are food makers who douse their products with harmful levels of salt.
Experimental vaccine shows promise for ovarian cancer
The promising results of a phase 1 clinical trial for the immunotherapy approach also showed that seven other women had no measurable disease at the end of the trial, the researchers added.
Radioactive water leaks at Fukushima
Water contaminated with radioactive material that leaked from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan may have seeped into groundwater, officials said Saturday.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant's operator, said 120 tons of water leaked early Saturday as workers transferred it from a leaking tank to another one, The Asahi Shimbun reported. Company officials said none of the tainted water has gotten into the ocean.
Iraq: Bomb at Baquba political rally kills at least 25
Officials said the attacker struck as Sunni candidate Muthana al-Jourani was meeting supporters in Baquba, 60km (35 miles) north-east of Baghdad, the BBC reported. No group has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack.
As Exxon cleans oil spill in Arkansas, Shell pipeline spills 700 barrels in Houston
While clean up continues at the site of the Exxon oil pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas, yesterday, an estimated 700 barrels of oil (or almost 30,000 gallons) were found to have leaked from the Shell oil West Colombia pipeline in Houston. The US Coast Guard reports that about 50 barrels worth of crude oil spilled into a bayou.
TVNL Comment: Note that this is a 'very early estimate.'
ACLU Report Exposes Debtors’ Prison Practices in Ohio
The U.S. Constitution and Ohio state law prohibit courts from jailing people for being too poor to pay their legal fines, but in several Ohio counties, local courts are doing it anyway. The ACLU of Ohio today released The Outskirts of Hope, a report that chronicles a nearly yearlong investigation into Ohio’s debtors’ prisons and tells the stories of six Ohioans whose lives have been damaged by debtors’ prison practices.
“Being poor is not a crime in this country,” said Rachel Goodman, Staff Attorney at the ACLU Racial Justice Program. “Incarcerating people who cannot afford to pay fines is both unconstitutional and cruel—it takes a tremendous toll on precisely those families already struggling the most.”
How Bradley Manning could have prevented the Deepwater Horizon explosion
Bradley Manning tried to save the eleven men who died – burned alive – on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in 2010. But Barack Obama and the New York Times made sure that wouldn’t happen. Three years ago this month, on the 20th of April, 2010, the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew itself to kingdom come.
Soon thereafter, a message came in to our office’s chief of investigations, Ms Badpenny, from a person I dare not name, who was floating somewhere in the Caspian Sea along the coast of Baku, Central Asia.
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