Kenan: The boy behind Global Medical Relief

Playing soccer at 11, he stepped on a landmine. At 28, he leads by example, showing maimed children how good life can be

 

On "60 Minutes" this week, Scott Pelley tells the story of Elissa Montanti and the global charity she runs out of a converted closet inside her tiny Staten Island home.

Montanti brings maimed children from war zones and disaster areas around the world to the United States for free medical treatment. She's helped over a hundred children so far, and it all started with a letter from a Bosnian boy named Kenan.

Kenan Malkic had just turned 11 when he went running for a loose ball in a soccer game with friends. He stepped on a landmine in the tall grasses of his neighborhood playground and lost both his arms and one leg in the blast. Montanti, who was a medical lab assistant in Staten Island at the time, arranged to bring Kenan to the U.S. for medical treatment. Now 28, Kenan is still in Staten Island, living in Montanti's home and working as her partner in the Global Medical Relief Fund.

In this video, you'll hear Kenan's story and see first-hand how he leads by example, helping kids from Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, and elsewhere who arrive here with extreme injuries just like his.

 

 

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Tepco pulled back information about radioactive water in Fukushima

 

The Japanese nuclear power plant Tepco operator has the information on the degree of radioactivity of the withdrawn from a reactor in Fukushima plant a water-worn.

The error was due to "confusion" in the measurements of iodine and cobalt in water came about, the news agency Jiji reported, citing Tepco. The operator had previously stated radioactively contaminated water with a ten million-fold increase in radiation from reactor 2 is the nuclear power plant leaked.

The statement that the increased values ​​1000 mSv per hour could be had, but correctly, it said. Further analysis would "as soon as possible" made Jiji quoted Tepco- Vice President Sakae Muto.

Given the disaster in Fukushima Japan for an end to hundreds of nuclear power have demonstrated. In the capital Tokyo and Nagoya in the center of the country gathered on Sundays around 300 demonstrators, including journalists, the news agency AFP reported. "We do not need nuclear power," chanted the protesters in Tokyo, who also marched on the headquarters of the energy company responsible for Fukushima Tepco. Some protesters wore gas masks.

In Nagoya, the protesters turned chanting loudly against "a second Fukushima. In particular, they demanded the closure of about 120 kilometers away in Hamaoka nuclear reactor in an earthquake zone on the southern coast of the island of Honshu. With heart-shaped balloons and they marched to the building of an energy supplier.

"I would even have control over my life and leave future generations no toxins," said the 63-year-old Shigeko Furumichi. The 36 - Goto Kenjirou year-old student added that the causes in Fukushima emerging radiation "enormous damage to agriculture." Who traveled here from Tokyo Atsuchi Fujuki was "sad and disappointed" in the face of disaster. "Japan has always lied when it has touted the benefits of nuclear energy," he said. (APA)

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Angry Birds:

  The Movie (Trailer) 

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The Next Step In Human Space Flight - The Orion Spacecraft

The project, developed by Lockheed Martin, plans a mission to the Lagrangian Point over the far side of the moon in 2018, missions to two asteroids in 2019 and 2029, and a mission to the moons of Mars that would include robotic missions to the Martian surface in 2031-2035.
Definition: Lagrangian Point - one of the five positions in an orbital configuration where a small object affected only by gravity can theoretically be stationary relative to two larger objects (such as a satellite with respect to the Earth and Moon).

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Epilepsy killed Knut, says doctor

 

A German neurologist has attributed Knut's sudden death last Saturday to the consequences of an epileptic seizure, while recriminations about the demise of Berlin's famous polar bear refused to abate.

Epilepsy expert Christian Elger from the University of Bonn told news magazine Focus that Knut's "typical turning movements" and his shaking leg – both seen in an internet video of the last seconds of the bear's life - were clear signs of an epileptic seizure.

The zoo refused to comment on the speculations, and said the final results of its own autopsy would be delivered on Wednesday or Thursday.
Filmed by one of hundreds of visitors who witnessed the incident, the video shows Knut losing his balance and falling into the pool in his enclosure. It could be disturbing to some people.

"I've seen similar symptoms in laboratory rats," said Elger. The professor speculated that the seizure disabled Knut's reflexes, which would have saved him from drowning.

The Berlin Zoo said in a statement Tuesday that a preliminary necropsy revealed "significant changes to the brain, which could be seen as the reason for the sudden death of the polar bear."

The zoo has come under fire in the wake of Knut's death, both for its treatment of the animal and the decision to have Knut stuffed. A death notice published by Knut fans in Saturday's edition of Berlin's Der Tagesspiegel newspaper, accused the zoo director of doing little to ensure his well-being.

Addressing the dead bear directly, the fans wrote, "You deserved the life of a polar prince. Instead you were fobbed off with the cheapest measures." The zoo is accused of not giving Knut enough toys to play with and for allowing him to be bullied by the three female bears he shared his enclosure with.

Zoo director Bernhard Blaszkiewitz had little sympathy with such notions, and called for more perspective. "I liked Knut as well," he said in an interview with the weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. "But more than 20,000 people just died in Japan, and there's a war in North Africa."

He said the "humanization" of Knut had been "extreme" even while he was alive. "I've worked in zoos for 37 years, and I've never seen such attention paid to one animal."

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Russian physicists plan to synthesize element 119 of periodic system

Russian physicists plan to synthesize element 119 of periodic system

Physicists from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna intend to begin experiments on the synthesis of element 119 of the periodic system, Sergei Dmitriyev, the head of the institute's laboratory of nuclear reactions, said on Saturday.

"In the near future we are planning a first experiment on the synthesis of element 119 of Mendeleev's periodic table together with our American colleagues from Livermore and Berkeley [laboratories]," Dmitryiev said at a press conference in Dubna, a town 125 km north of Moscow.

"We do believe that element 118 is not the last one," he added.

Element 118 was synthesized in Dubna in October 2006.

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, where six elements of the periodic system were synthesized earlier, is currently celebrating the 55th anniversary of its foundation.

DUBNA, March 26 (RIA Novosti)

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Izmir (western Turkey) to become a center of NATO operations in Libya

 

BRUSSELS, Belgium/ANKARA, Turkey -- The command-and-control center for NATO's air campaign to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya will be located at the alliance's base in the province of Izmir in western Turkey, NATO spokesperson Col. Geoffrey Booth told a press conference in Brussels on Friday (March 25th). Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced late Thursday that his country's concerns about the mission in the northern African country had been resolved and the government would join the international coalition that is intervening in the Libyan crisis. 

 

(Zaman - 26/03/11; Hurriyet, Anadolu news agency - 25/03/11)

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