Friday, July 29, 2005

Michael Shields, an 18-year old Liverpool Football Club supporter, has been jailed for the attempted murder of a Bulgarian barman, despite another man from Liverpool admitting full responsibility.

Shields, 18 from Wavertree was charged with the attempted murder of Martin Georgiev, 25, after being accused of throwing a brick at the barman’s head in the city of Varna, where he was celebrating Liverpool football club’s win over AC Milan in the final of the Champions League in Istanbul in May.

Before being charged, a 20 year old man from Anfield came forward and claimed responsibility for the attack – Graham Sankey, made a statement through his lawyer David Kirwan.

Mr Kirwan said: “Graham believed the case against Michael would either be thrown or adjourned after he came forward to make his confession.” Despite the confession, Shields was convicted of attempted murder.

Shields’ uncle, Joey Graney, was in court when the sentence was passed and said: “Michael was sobbing. He’s an 18-year-old lad, quiet as a mouse, on his own, going back to a Bulgarian jail. What’s he going to do? As far as the Bulgarians were concerned, a local lad had been attacked and they wanted their scapegoat. They did not care that Graham Sankey has confessed to carrying out the attack. They just tossed that aside.”

The family have said they will do everything in their power to clear Michael’s name. Meanwhile, Liverpool Riverside MP Louise Ellman, has backed the family’s campaign calling the incident a “travesty of justice”.

“Graham Sankey has admitted he was guilty of the crime that Michael Shields is now convicted of, but he did so in a way that was inadmissible to the Bulgarian court,” added Mrs Ellman, who is planning to speak to his defence team.

A British Foreign Office spokesman said it could not comment on the verdict but said it would continue offering consular help to Michael Shields.

Bulgarian government officials have since agreed to begin the process of releasing Michael Shields, in exchange for the arrest of Graham Sankey.

The development came after long-time justice campaigner Stephen Jakobi held closed talks with Bulgarian ambassador Lachezar Matev at the Bulgarian Embassy in London.

Mr. Jakobi announced that Michael could be free in the next “few months”.

“It’s been a good day and we have achieved an important breakthrough.

“We have got an agreement with the Bulgarian government that they are going to take up our proposed course of action – that is issuing an arrest warrant for Graham Sankey.

“The government is independent of the judiciary in that country but they can hold talks with them to get the ball rolling as soon as possible.

“The arrest warrant will means the extradition process will begin.”

Home Secretary Jack Straw has also agreed to meet with Shield’s family to discuss the situation with them.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

A judge in the High Court in Aberdeen, Scotland has criticised the care doctors gave to baby Alexis Matheson. Lord Uist made the comments while sentencing Mark Simpson, who was yesterday convicted of murdering the six-week-old girl.

Simpson, 29, will serve at least twenty years of his life sentence after he attacked Alexis — the child of his then-girlfriend Ilona Sheach, who he blamed for Alexis’s wounds — over the course of a month. The child suffered broken ribs and brain damage. Lord Uist said staff at Woodside Medical Group might have been able to prevent the death but failed to realise the baby was being hurt deliberately.

Sheach had initially been unable to get an appointment at Aberdeen-based Woodside for her daughter; instead, Dr Mohammed Athar spoke on the phone with Sheach and prescribed three drugs without seeing the infant. When she did see a doctor the following week despite being, said Lord Uist, “seriously concerned” for Alexis’s health, the doctor she saw — Linda Mackay — believed Sheach’s explanation the baby was constipated. She felt Alexis’s blood-red eyes were due to straining; a consultant neurosurgeon testified at trial that this did not explain the subconjunctival haemorrhages in the eyes.

That consultant felt a referral to a paediatrician would have been approrpiate. A consultant paediatrician told the court if Dr Mckay had phoned one Alexis would have been urgently hospitalised. These circumstances have led to calls for legislative changes, according to The Scotsman, which compared the death to the recent Baby P case in neighbouring England. Lord Uist also made this comparison, saying “Scottish health authorities have to treat this case with a similar degree of importance and urgency” to “[t]he Baby P case down south”.

Lord Uist was “very disturbed” that “nothing was done” following Dr Mackay’s assessment. He also criticised the delay in seeing a doctor, saying “[i]t is my opinion the appointments system operated at this surgery may require urgent review so as to ensure children requiring urgent attention receive it by being seen by a doctor.”

He continued “[w]hether the death of baby Alexis could have been prevented had she been so referred is a matter which, in my opinion, merits a very full inquiry. The training of GPs, and also health visitors, to detect signs of non-accidental injury may be a matter that requires further consideration.”

The same day as these comments, Crown Office announced that a fatal accident inquiry will occur. “These are very serious criticisms by Lord Uist of the way the health services operated,” said Scottish Conservatives health spokesman Murdo Fraser. “Clearly, there were serious failings in relation to this baby’s treatment and lessons have to be learned from this case.”

The health board stated “NHS Grampian and the Woodside Medical Practice would like to extend their condolences to Alexis’s family. We understand that Lord Uist has issued a statement that it is critical of perceived failings in the care given to Alexis. We will consider these comments very carefully.”

The Scottish Government has also taken note. “We extend our deepest condolences to the family of Alexis Matheson,” according to a spokeswoman. “We continue to monitor the situation very closely, and will await the findings of the fatal accident inquiry. Following this we will work with the health board to determine any necessary changes and ensure that any lessons are learned.”

Friday, August 4, 2006

The Domesday Book, penned in the eleventh century, can now be explored online after more than twenty years of work.

The book was commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086 to tally the amount of land and resources owned throughout England. The findings were used to calculate taxes, and the wealth of the king.

From today, anyone with an Internet connection is now able to explore the book for free. A web browser can be used to find out what life was like in the past in any English village, town or city. In addition, a person can download a copy of any page from the book for the fee of £3.50.

Commenting on the online edition, Adrian Ailes, a Domesday expert from The National Archives, said it was “a fantastic achievement”. “It is important that people of all ages should be able to read and use this national treasure,” he added.

The book was voted the “nation’s finest treasure” in 2005. But studies have found that thirteen percent of people believe the Domesday Book to be a chapter in the Bible, and nearly two percent think the iconic document is a novel penned by Dan Brown.

The original text is currently on display at The National Archives in west London.

The portalpage for the online edition is http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Two train derailments in two days have closed railway lines in Australia.

A Rio Tinto iron ore train derailled at Pilbara, on a spur of the Tom Price to Dampier line on Thursday 29. The following day, a freight train with 40 wagons derailed east of Kalgoorlie, injuring three people.

The second derailment has closed the line used by the long distance Sydney to Perth Indian Pacific passenger train. Operators Great Southern Railway expect to lose A$500,000 revenues as the line remains closed until at least Thursday. Police say heavy rain has affected the area, and the federal Australian Rail Track Corporation say that a new access road needs to be built in order to clear the wreckage and repair the track.

Rio Tinto have sufficient stocks of iron ore already in place to keep working. However, the freight train was carrying consumer products, which may run short in the south of Western Australia in the next few days. The Kalgoorie crash is to be investigated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, while maintenance company Transfield Services will also be examining the incident.

Monday, July 3, 2006

A house in Eglinton, a village suburb of Bathurst in Central-Western New South Wales has been significantly damaged after being hit by a truck just before 3 p.m. today. It is not known if anyone was inside the house at the time the accident occurred. Police said no major injuries were sustained as a result of the accident.

The accident occurred in light rain and the road surface was moderately wet.

It is believed that the truck was traveling along Eleven Mile Drive, Eglinton when a Subaru Forester pulled into its path from a side street. The Subaru had been required to give way to the truck. The truck struck the Subaru, hitting it and pushing it down the road before losing control and hitting a house on the opposite side of the road.

The driver of the truck was trapped inside his vehicle for around 15 minutes before being released by rescue personnel, the driver of the Subaru was taken by ambulance to the Bathurst Base Hospital to ensure they were not suffering any major injuries.

When the truck hit the house, a gas line was ruptured creating a hazard for rescue crews. The pipeline’s operator – Agility disconnected the line after the truck driver was rescued. Police also requested that electricity to the house be disconnected.

It was not until 4:15 p.m. that approval was given for the truck to be pulled from the house. It is expected that engineers from Bathurst Regional Council will inspect the house to determine if it is still structurally safe.

While it is not unusual in Bathurst for trucks to hit homes, it is unusual for such an accident to occur at this location. Most accidents of this nature occur on the Great Western Highway, which intersects the city and is a freight gateway to the region.

Monday, February 21, 2005

Los Angeles, California – A simple saliva test can predict whether children will get cavities, how many cavities they will get and which teeth are most vulnerable.

Developed by researchers at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the test quantifies the genetic component of tooth decay, spotting the risk when something can be done about it.

“When we apply this to young children, it allows us to predict what might be their future caries history—the number of cavities that they’ll get by, say, their late 20s or early 30s,” says researcher Paul Denny.

Called the Caries Assessment and Risk Evaluation (CARE) test, the test measures the relative proportions in saliva of different types of sugar chains called oligosaccharides. The same sugar chains are present on tooth surfaces.

The effect of sugar chains on teeth’s resistance to disease is analogous to the effect of “good” and “bad” cholesterol on blood vessels. “Good” sugar chains tend to repel bacteria that cause cavities while “bad” allow bacteria to bond to teeth and start the decay process. Unlike cholesterol, however, sugar chain makeup in humans is 100% genetically determined.

Denny and colleagues have found that the sugar chain makeup in saliva can predict a child’s future cavity history to plus or minus one cavity with greater than 98% confidence.

The findings suggest that in developed areas of the modern era genes play a more significant role in tooth decay than in former times or third world nations where gross malnutrition and negligent oral hygiene held the greatest impact on dental health.

[edit]

Thursday, January 12, 2006

President George W. Bush made a stop over in two of the worst hit cities by Hurricane Katrina today. His stops included New Orleans, Louisiana, and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

The president made small speeches in both cities, with references to the many problems that still exist due to a lack of housing, the slow pace of Small Business Administration Loans, problems with homeowners insurance payments and the urgent need for bridge rebuilding.

“People in faraway places like Washington, D.C., still hear you and care about you,” Bush said standing in a gymnasium at St. Stanislaus College in Bay St. Louis. “I recognize there’s some rough spots. We’re going to work to make them as smooth as possible.”

Bush also recognized and promised that his administration is learning the lessons of its “all-to-slow” and “much-criticized” response to Katrina. “Obviously the federal response in parts of this devastated area could have been a lot better. We want to know how to make them better. We want to make sure that when there is a catastrophe of any kind, this government, at the federal level, is capable of dealing with it in conjunction with the state and local governments.We want to know how to make it better,” Bush said during his speech. “I just want to assure you, we are, we are.”

Bush went on to praise the city’s success in getting the essential utilities, such as, water and electric “mostly” on-line. He also said that federal tax incentives will encourage businesses to create jobs and promised that the new levy system will make the city “both safer and more attractive for investment.” He also added that all those things will help New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf, back into a “shining part of the South.” He also said “New Orleans is a great place to have a convention” and a “heck of a place to bring your family.”

Bush promises that the federal government has allocated 85 billion dollars for reconstruction efforts, $25 billion of which has already been spent on mostly the effort to clean up the debris and provide temporary housing for citizens.

Hurricane Katrina struck the south central U.S. on late August 29, 2005.

Katrina first made landfall in Miami, Florida on August 25, 2005 as a category one hurricane resulting in dozens of deaths in South Florida and spawning several tornadoes.

Katrina then passed over Florida and headed into the Gulf of Mexico where it strengthened into a massive category 5 storm.

She then made her second landfall on the morning of August 29, 2005, near Buras-Triumph, Louisiana with winds at 125 MPH and a central pressure of 920 mbar, a strong Category 3 storm.

Katrina is quite possibly the strongest hurricane on record ever, but estimating the size of storms from before the 1960s (the pre-satellite era) is difficult to near impossible.

As of January 4, 2006, the confirmed death toll from Katrina stands at 1,386.

Demographers estimate of New Orleans’ 400,000 residents prior to Katrina only 25% have returned.