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Monday, July 7, 2008

Hitler’s wax model is to return to the Madame Tussauds museum in Berlin, Germany after getting its head ripped off by a 41-year old man who was arrested but subsequently released.

At the grand opening of the museum, the man, currently only known as Frank L., pushed aside two officers who were protecting the exhibit. Yelling “No more war!”, he proceeded to rip off the wax sculpture’s head.

The man was arrested but later released pending investigation. He told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag he was angry about the exhibit. It has been reported that he had committed the act to win a bet started by his friends at a bar.

The waxwork was criticized around Germany where, generally, Nazi memorabilia or symbols are banned. Critics have argued that it is inappropriate to display a person who started a world war, but the museum has noted that Hitler was an important figure in German history.

The museum has announced its intentions to reinstate the €200,000 (£160,000) model after repairs, which could take weeks.

Friday, May 16, 2008

State run television in Myanmar has reported that the death toll from the recent cyclone has increased dramatically to 77,738. In addition to this, 55,917 people are still officially missing.

In what are admittedly rough estimates, the United Nations (UN) estimates that more than 100,000 have died, while the International Red Cross projects 128,000 deaths. At least 10,000 people died just in Bogale Township in the Pyapon District of the country.

The United Nations has reported that 2.5 million people are homeless, or in need of help in the Irrawaddy Delta.

The military junta that governs the country says that it can handle relief operations and that they are going well. It is still turning down international offers to transport aid directly to the affected areas. According to state television, Prime Minister Thein Sein said, “We have already finished our first phase of emergency relief. We are going onto the second phase, the rebuilding stage.”

“Time is life,” said Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development & Humanitarian Aid to reporters at Bangkok International Airport in Thailand. “No government in the world can tackle such a problem alone. This is a major catastrophe.”

Michel was returning from a trip to Yangon where he was unsuccessful at urging the junta to allow direct aid despite its pride and paranoia about the outside world.

Aid groups, including UN agencies, say only a fraction of the required relief is getting through and, unless the situation improves, thousands more lives are at risk.

According to The New York Times, the United States and some European allies had considered a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for “humanitarian intervention” in Myanmar, which would give authorization for a relief mission without approval of the military authorities in Myanmar. The idea was dismissed after it became clear that China would veto any such resolution.

The US has a assembled number of ships, helicopters, transport airplanes and marines in the region, ready to assist in cyclone relief if given approval by the government of Myanmar. US officials say that helicopters can bring in assistance to areas inland from the coast and further help distribute supplies across the country. Myanmar has approved fewer than 20 cargo planes to bring supplies to the capital, Yangon.

At the United Nations Headquarters, a row occurred when Myanmar’s ambassador to the UN, Kyaw Tint Swe, interrupted the French ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert during a speech to the General Assembly. He accused France of sending a warship to Myanmar.

“It’s not true,” Ripert said. While the ship is operated by the French Navy, it is not a warship but a ship carrying 1500 tonnes of food and medicine, Ripert insisted. It also has small boats to reach the flooded Irrawaddy Delta. The ship will reach the coast of Myanmar on Saturday, awaiting approval to deliver aid.

Meanwhile, the UN is sending John Holmes, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, to make contact with Myanmar’s reclusive military leaders to improve UN access to the hardest-hit areas.

According to UN spokesperson, Michèle Montas, Holmes will arrive in Myanmar on Sunday. He will be carrying a letter from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to Senior General Than Shwe, who has twice previously refused to converse with Ban.

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Friday, November 25, 2011

Scottish football team Hibernian F.C. (Hibs) have appointed Pat Fenlon as their new manager. Fenlon signed the contract at Hibs’ Easter Road home ground in the capital, Edinburgh.

Fenlon left Bohemian F.C., an Irish football team he managed since 2008, so that he could manage Hibernian, which he is “really excited by”. Fenlon’s management career has previously remained in his native Ireland. From 2002, Fenlon managed Shelbourne F.C., which won the UEFA Cup in three of the five seasons he managed the team for. Fenlon went on to manage Derby City in 2007 before taking the managing position at Bohemians. According to Fenlon, Hibernian are “a club with a rich history and proud traditions.” Fenlon’s Hibs contract will last until the conclusion of 2013 / 2014 football season.

Hibs have now had five managers in as many years. Colin Calderwood is the most recent before Fenlon, being removed from his position on November 6 after twelve months managing the team. In that time they played in forty-nine matches and won in twelve of them. Calderwood has since gone on to become part of Birmingham City F.C., a football team based in the English city of Birmingham.

At the end of the previous football season, Hibernian F.C. placed tenth. As it stands, the team are currently ninth in the Scottish Premier League table. In reference to what he called the “quality players on Hibernian’s playing staff”, Fenlon stated that “there will need to be a lot of hard work and a clear change in mindset shown collectively by the team” and that a major target for them will be “to provide winning football to the Hibernian supporters, who have gone through some hard times recently.”

Tuesday, March 29, 2005A team of Australian surgeons yesterday reattached both hands and one foot to 10-year-old Perth boy, Terry Vo, after a brick wall which collapsed during a game of basketball fell on him, severing the limbs. The wall gave way while Terry performed a slam-dunk, during a game at a friend’s birthday party.

The boy was today awake and smiling, still in some pain but in good spirits and expected to make a full recovery, according to plastic surgeon, Mr Robert Love.

“What we have is parts that are very much alive so the reattached limbs are certainly pink, well perfused and are indeed moving,” Mr Love told reporters today.

“The fact that he is moving his fingers, and of course when he wakes up he will move both fingers and toes, is not a surprise,” Mr Love had said yesterday.

“The question is more the sensory return that he will get in the hand itself and the fine movements he will have in the fingers and the toes, and that will come with time, hopefully. We will assess that over the next 18 months to two years.

“I’m sure that he’ll enjoy a game of basketball in the future.”

The weight and force of the collapse, and the sharp brick edges, resulted in the three limbs being cut through about 7cm above the wrists and ankle.

Terry’s father Tan said of his only child, the injuries were terrible, “I was scared to look at him, a horrible thing.”

The hands and foot were placed in an ice-filled Esky and rushed to hospital with the boy, where three teams of medical experts were assembled, and he was given a blood transfusion after experiencing massive blood loss. Eight hours of complex micro-surgery on Saturday night were followed by a further two hours of skin grafts yesterday.

“What he will lose because it was such a large zone of traumatised skin and muscle and so on, he will lose some of the skin so he’ll certainly require lots of further surgery regardless of whether the skin survives,” said Mr Love said today.

The boy was kept unconscious under anaesthetic between the two procedures. In an interview yesterday, Mr Love explained why:

“He could have actually been woken up the next day. Because we were intending to take him back to theatre for a second look, to look at the traumatised skin flaps, to close more of his wounds and to do split skin grafting, it was felt the best thing to do would be to keep him stable and to keep him anaesthetised.”

Professor Wayne Morrison, director of the respected Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery and head of plastic and hand surgery at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, said he believed the operation to be a world first.