“There are no politics, they are just hooligans,” the chairwoman of the court, Olga Yegorova, said after the hearing. Yegorova has ruled that in August 2012 the court appropriately sentenced members of the ‘feminist punk band’ Pussy Riot – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina (along with Ekaterina Samutsevich, whose term was later changed on suspended one) to two years in prison for aggravated ‘hooliganism motivated by religious hatred’. Despite Alyokhina having a child, she was still denied parole. The trial was held after the group performed what they called a ‘punk prayer’ in Moscow’s main cathedral, chanting the song ‘Mother of God send Putin Away’, recording it and posting the video on the internet. The lawyer for the other jailed Pussy Riot members, Irina Khrunova, considered the ruling “predictable” and said she was now going to file a complaint with the Russian Supreme Court. “I won’t comment on actions or words of the chairwoman of the Moscow City Court, I will, however, continue to fight injustice,” Khrunova told Interfax. The defense insists that the clients must be fully acquitted as their crime was of a non-violent nature and caused no material damage. Another complaint is that there were alleged procedural violations during the investigation and the trial process itself. The women themselves also deny all charges saying that the gig was a political protest against the ties between Russian authorities and the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church. A Russian court earlier denied Alyokhina’s request for early release, filed seven months after the sentence was passed. Moreover, she was not allowed to be present at the hearing. In protest against a court’s decision not to allow her to personally attend a hearing, Alyokhina declared a hunger strike. As the appeal concluded, she vowed to continue with her hunger strike. On Tuesday, less than a week after she declared a hunger strike, Alyokhina was reportedly transferred to a medical station in a penal colony in Perm Region, where she is serving her sentence. Russia’s Federal Service for Execution of Punishment (FSIN) has confirmed the information that was initially tweeted by Tolokonnikova’s husband, activist Pyotr Verzilov. “She still refuses food,” the FSIN said. … Read More
Mystery of aging: Swiss scientists one step closer to breaking longevity secrets
The goal of the research by the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) and which was published in the scientific journal Nature [WHEN] was to find out why some members of the same species live much longer than others. “Our lab has for some time been using a complex genetic reference population of mice, which mimic the human population to study ageing,” said John Auwerx, the head of the cutting edge Swiss team, told AFP. The scientists examined the mice’s mitochondria, the power plant of a cell, and worked out how a group of three genes affected the animal’s life-span through how fast they functioned. Those mice whose genes were 50% slower lived 250 days, or 30% of mouse lifespan, longer.“Based on this observation, we switched model, and started validating this experimentally in a worm, knocking down the same proteins, we could see an up to 60% extension of the worm’s life-span,” said Auwerx. Auwerx then explained that since mitochondria are bacteria living in cells, this allowed then to experiment with antibiotics, which target bacteria. “We could see that treating the worms with the antibiotics also mimicked the genetic effects, and they also lived 60% longer,” he explained. Mitochondria transform nutrients into proteins and several studies have suggested that they may be the driving force behind aging. The scientists underlined that further studies would be required to find out whether antibiotics could be used to slow down ageing in mammals.A similar study published in the journal science at the end of last year into solving the mystery of aging found that Longevity Gene Makes Hydra Immortal and Humans Grow Older. The reason is that these tiny fresh water animals exclusively reproduce by budding rather than by mating. … Read More
Efforts shift from rescue to recovery in tornado-hit Oklahoma
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Search and rescue teams are continuing to scour rubble for survivors in tornado-ravaged Oklahoma. But with officials increasingly confident that everyone has been accounted for, efforts are also turning towards recovery in the suburb of Moore.
At least 24 people were killed when the powerful twister struck.
David Wheeler, whose son Gabriel was at Briarwood Elementary School, said: “You know, I was on the phone with my mum and she said that my son’s school got hit and it was just terrifying.”
“(Teacher) Miss (Julie) Simon took the kids from, I believe, a hallway into a closet area and she pushed them down, held them down, told them that they were just going to practice what they did before, and that’s what they did,” Wheeler continued.
Gabriel said: “It was really hard, I thought I was going to die. I was lifted up in the air, my glasses fell off. It was ‘thump, thump’ and the ceiling came off and all this stuff came on me.”
Another school, Plaza Towers Elementary, was flattened. At least seven children were killed at the site.
Nature’s wicked hand left Moore unrecognisable. It will take years for the shattered community to repair and rebuild.
More about: Natural catastrophe, Oklahoma City, Tornado, USA
Copyright © 2013 euronews
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Hamburg ‘avoids radiation disaster’ as ship loaded with fissile material, explosives burns
It took 200 firefighters working for several hours to douse the fires on the Atlantic Cartier. The ship’s most visible cargo was some 70 cars, 30 of which were damaged in the incident. But now it was revealed that the vessel also had highly dangerous substances on board as well, which posed the threat of radioactive contamination to the area.Fire broke out the ship several hours after it arrived in the port of Hamburg. Three tugs and two fireboats were involved in fighting with the blaze, as firefighters unloaded shipping containers while cooling down the hull of the vessel with water. The ship was seriously damaged by the fire and remains in Hamburg.The Atlantic Cartier was transporting around 9 tons of uranium hexafluoride, a radioactive highly violate and toxic compound most commonly used as an intermediate material in the production of nuclear fuel. The vessel also had 180 tons of flammable ethanol and 4 tons of explosives at the time the fire broke out.The news of the averted disaster in Hamburg was broken by the opposition Green Party. It criticized the city authorities for not reporting the full details of the incident on its own initiative.”It is an outrage that the Senate has not informed the public about this near catastrophe,” Greens’ member of the Hamburg parliament Anjes Tjarks said. “Here one must speak of a cover-up.”The city responded by saying that the firefighters were informed of the dangerous nature of the cargo promptly, which is the reason why the containers in question were quickly removed from the ship.”Thanks to the quick intervention, the harbor and the people in the area suffered from no hazard,” said city spokesman Frank Reschreiter. “There was no leak of the dangerous material.”Hamburg regularly receives shipments of radioactive material, German media report. It is a convenient transit point to deliver them to the uranium-enriching facility in Lingen, Lower Saxony. … Read More
Swedish cop warned after ‘sexting’ teen girl
A Swedish policeman has been issued with a warning after sending text messages of a sexual nature to a 17-year-old girl who had been a witness in a case he had investigated. … Read More
Update at 100 days: Obama talks Gitmo, Syria, Boston and Congressional gridlock
In a press conference on the 100th day of his second term (though his administration dismissed the symbolic nature of the date), President Obama had little new information to report on the major topics that have defined his time in office thus far: The “red line” in Syria, the sequester and endless Congressional gridlock.On SyriaObama was careful to avoid making definitive statements about American military action in Syria, saying that while his administration had confirmed the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, it still did not have “all the facts.” He said, for example, they could not confirm “how they were used, when they were used or who used them” or a “chain of custody” firm enough to take decisive military action.He went on to suggest that he is interested in building an international coalition to take action in Syria, rather than taking unilateral action, explaining: ”If we end up rushing to judgement without hard, effective evidence, then we find ourselves in a position where we can’t mobilizie the international community to support what we do… It’s important to do this in a prudent way.”Continue Reading… … Read More
Update at 100 days: Obama talks Syria, Boston and Congressional gridlock
In a press conference on the 100th day of his second term (though his administration dismissed the symbolic nature of the date), President Obama had little new information to report on the major topics that have defined his time in office thus far: The “red line” in Syria, the sequester and endless Congressional gridlock.On SyriaObama was careful to avoid making definitive statements about American military action in Syria, saying that while his administration had confirmed the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, they still did not have “all the facts.” He said, for example, they could not confirm “how they were used, when they were used or who used them” or a “chain of custody” firm enough to take decisive military action.He went on to suggest that he is interested in building an international coalition to take action in Syria, rather than taking unilateral action, explaining: ”If we end up rushing to judgement without hard, effective evidence, then we find ourselves in a position where we can’t mobilizie the international community to support what we do… It’s important to do this in a prudent way.”Continue Reading… … Read More
