Brave Aesha unveils her new face as she urges abused women to 'never give up'

9:30 PM News No Comments

"I want to tell all women who are suffering abuse to be strong. Never give up and don’t lose hope."

When Aesha Mohammadzai was forced to return to the abusive family she had run away from, her husband took her into the mountains of Afghanistan and cut off her nose and ears as punishment.

Three years ago her mutilated face became a powerful image that shocked the world and put a tragic face to the plight of Afghan women.

Aesha's husband inflicted the punishment on her (AP)But now the brave 23-year-old has unveiled for the first time the results of the reconstructive surgery to rebuild her face.

Aesha's ordeal started when she was just eight years old.

Her father had promised her hand in marriage to another family in order to settle a dispute between the rival families - a practice called "Baad".At the age of sixteen she was handed over to her husband's father and 10 brothers, who she claims were members of the Taliban. She would not meet her husband for another two years - he was fighting in Pakistan.

Talking to ITV's Daybreak this morning Aesha said: "Every day I was abused by my husband and his family. Mentally and physically. Then one day it became unbearable so I ran away."

Although running away in Afghanistan is not a crime, in many areas of the country it is treated as such if the runaway is a woman.

The punishment she received from the authorities was cruel and harsh, but it would not compare to the punishment she received from her family and the Taliban court.

She said: "[The police] caught me and put me in jail for five months. When I came out the judge sent me back to my husband."

Her family took her to a Taliban court where they decreed she be mutilated as punishment.

"That night they took me to the mountains," she continued. "They tied my hands and my feet. They said my punishment was to cut my nose and ears. And then they started to do it."

That night was the first time she met her husband. He was the one who inflicted the torture on her and left her to die in the Oruzgan mountains.

Rescued from Afghanistan by a charity, Aesha now lives happily in America with a new family.

Aesha Mohammadzai, 23, now lives in America with a new family (Dan MartlandITV)

According to a 2012 report by Human Rights Watch, 87% of women face physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage in their lifetime.

Aesha is just one of those women who suffers in the war-torn country.

But despite her harrowing past the reconstructive surgery is the start of a new life.

She told Daybreak: "I want to tell all women who are suffering abuse to be strong. Never give up and don’t lose hope."

Aesha and her American family. Aesha's story is just one example of the violence suffered by women in Afghanistan …

Source: Yahoo News

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'I don't deserve it': Homeless man's astonishment after donors pledge him $150,000 for returning diamond engagement ring

9:20 PM News No Comments

Sarah Darling lost her ring on the streets of Kansas City when she it unknowingly dropped it into a cup belonging to Billy Ray Harris.

A homeless man has become the centre of a global fundraising campaign - after returning a diamond engagement ring to a bride-to-be who dropped it in his coffee cup.

Sarah Darling lost her ring on the streets of Kansas City when she it unknowingly dropped it into a cup belonging to Billy Ray Harris.

She desperately dashed back to the scene the next day after realising it was missing, and was overjoyed when Harris returned the valuable jewellery straight back to her.

The feel-good story has touched so many people that an online fundraising page for homeless Harris has since pulled $150,000 in less than a fortnight.

The act of selflessness by Harris, who sleeps under a bridge and spends his days in a square in Kansas City, has since been described as a 'miracle' by Ms Darling's fiance, Bill Krejci.

Mr Krejci, who set up the online donations page himself, said the act of generosity 'makes you realise that there are good people out there'.

The donations, which on Tuesday afternoon stood at $151,000, are currently enough for Harris to get himself off the streets and buy a three-bedroom house in Kansas City.

Valuable: The diamond engagement ring which Harris selflessly returned (KCTV 5)

Harris told a local television station he 'had that little devil on my shoulder saying, "Keep the money",' but he decided against pawning the ring for cash.

When a distraught Ms Darling returned to the square hoping to retrieve the ring, she told Harris: "I don't know if you remember me, but I think I gave you something that's very precious."

Harris asked her, "Was it a ring?", before adding, "Yeah I have it, I kept it for you," and pulling it from a pocket.

Ms Darling and her fiance set up the fundraising page to thank Harris for returning the ring, hoping it would pull in $1,000.

Instead, over 6,000 pledges have flooded in from Asia, Europe and America, all wishing Harris well for his good deed.

Distraught: Sarah Darling was overjoyed when she recovered the ring (KCTV 5)

One donor left a message on the page saying: "An amazing man who deserves amazing things.. I hope things go well for you :) You are a true inspiration around the world!!"

Another pledge, from Pat Gowen, read: "Thank you Mr. Harris for your honesty. You have restored my faith in people. God Bless you."

Harris himself said he didn't think he deserves all the attention he has been getting.

He told local television station KCTV: "What I actually feel is, "What is the world coming to when a person returns something that dosn't belong to him and all this happens?".'

He added: "My grandfather was a reverend. He raised me from the time I was six months old and, thank the good Lord, it's a blessing, but I do still have some character."

Harris said he may attempt to find somewhere to live in Texas, where he has family, but is currently staying with a friend.

In a statement on the Give Forward online page, Bill Krejci said after meeting Harris: "We talked about what he plans to do.

"He has a very solid plan and a very solid way of making it happen."









Source: Yahoo News

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Queen Treated In Hospital Over Stomach Bug

9:07 PM News No Comments

Queen Elizabeth of England

The Queen has been taken to hospital "as a precaution" after suffering symptoms of gastroenteritis.

Her Majesty, who is aged 86, is being assessed by doctors at the King Edward VII Hospital in central London.

The monarch is in "good spirits" and is otherwise in "good health", according to her spokesman.

She was driven to the hospital by private car at about 3pm and is expected to remain at the medical facility for a couple of days.

The spokesman said: "This is a precautionary measure. She was not taken into hospital immediately after feeling the symptoms.

"This is simply to enable doctors to better assess her."

The Queen was last in hospital in 2003 when she had a knee operation.

All official engagements planned for this week will be postponed or cancelled, Buckingham Palace said.

Medical experts said she would probably be treated with a drip. It is important to ensure patients are given combinations of sugar and salt to help fluids be absorbed.

The Queen's sickness was first announced on Friday.

She had been due to attend a military celebration in Swansea on Saturday for St David's Day celebrations, but was forced to cancel because of the illness.

Instead, the monarch spent the day resting at Windsor Castle.

Before her admission to hospital she presented a female member of staff an award for long service at Windsor.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were set to fly out to Rome for a two-day visit this Wednesday, which will now not go ahead.

The Queen had been due to meet the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano who said he sends his "best wishes for a speedy recovery".

Prime Minister David Cameron also wished the Queen well and said he hoped she makes a speedy recovery, according to Downing Street.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: "The Queen is being assessed at the King Edward VII's Hospital, London, after experiencing symptoms of gastroenteritis.

"As a precaution, all official engagements for this week will regrettably be either postponed or cancelled."

Gastroenteritis is an infection of the stomach and bowel. The most common symptoms are vomiting and repeated episodes of diarrhoea.

The two most common causes of gastroenteritis in adults in the UK are norovirus and food poisoning.

The Queen undertook a number of engagements during the last week.

On Tuesday she met the Archbishop of Canterbury at Buckingham Palace, on Wednesday she visited the Royal London Hospital, and a day later she presented Olympic stars with honours during an investiture ceremony.

Her Majesty has rarely missed a royal engagement due to ill health in recent years.

She was last forced to pull out of an investiture ceremony in October last year after suffering with a bad back.

She also missed a visit to the British Museum in October 2011 because of a cold.

The Duchess of Cambridge was treated at the King Edward VII hospital last December for acute morning sickness.













Source: Yahoo! News

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Teenager crafts early detection tool for pancreatic cancer

7:00 PM Health No Comments

LONG BEACH, California (AFP) – Jack Andraka catapulted from being a typical US teenager unaware of the pancreas to one with a cheap way to detect cancer in the organ before it turns deadly.

“Through the Internet, anything is possible,” Andraka said while telling the story of his screening breakthrough at a prestigious TED Conference in Southern California on Wednesday.

“There is so much more to it than posting duck-face pictures of yourself online,” he continued, sucking in his cheeks and pushing out his lips to playfully underscore his point.

“If a 15-year-old who didn’t know what a pancreas was could figure out a way to detect pancreatic cancer, imagine what you could do.”

Andraka, who turned 16 in January, recounted how three years ago he began scouring the Internet for information about pancreatic cancer after it killed a cherished family friend.

He told of being shocked to learn that the cancer was typically found too late to save people. On top of that, the test used to screen for the illness was 60 years old, he said.

“That is older than my dad,” Andraka quipped. “More important, it is expensive, inaccurate, and your doctor would have to be ridiculously suspicious that you had the cancer to give you this test.”

He figured what was needed was a test that was inexpensive, fast, simple and sensitive.

“Undeterred due to my teenage optimism, I went online to a teenager’s two best friends: Google and Wikipedia,” Andraka said.

What he found was there were thousands of proteins that could be detected in the blood of people with pancreatic cancer, and he hunted for one that could serve as an early flag for the illness.

“Finally, on the 4,000th try when I am losing my sanity, I found the protein,” Andraka said.

The revelation came in what he described as an unlikely place, a high school biology class he referred to as an “absolute stifler of innovation.”

“I was sneakily reading this nanotubes article under my desk while we were supposed to be paying attention to antibodies,” Andraka recalled.

“Suddenly it hit me that I could combine what I was reading with what I was supposed to be thinking about.”

He described a recipe for making paper sensors to detect the protein – mesothelin – in blood that is “about as simple as making chocolate chip cookies, which I love.”

The test costs three cents, takes minutes, and appears to be 100 percent accurate, according to his TED Talk.

Andraka said he sent out 200 requests to scientists for lab space to continue his work, only to be rejected by all but Johns Hopkins University where he was fiercely grilled before being taken in.

He commenced to fix holes he discovered in his “once brilliant procedure” and went on to be awarded the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair grand prize.

Andraka described his approach as having the potential to be tailored to screen for other forms of cancer as well as heart disease or HIV/AIDS.

He told of currently working on “something the size of a cube of sugar” that could “look through your skin” and study blood or signs of almost any disease. The cost? An estimated five dollars.

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Old people need special care – Prof. Olu Akinyanju

12:00 AM Health No Comments

AS life expectancy rates in our urban areas reach an all time high, minimal government infrastructure for geriatric care has left a huge void in the healthcare market. It is this void that the clinic of Professor Olu Akinyanju seeks to fill with their quality private homecare services for the responsible in our midst who care about their aged but unfortunately do not have the time to give this care themselves.

A Physician and Haematologist, professor Akinyanju is better known as the Founder & Chairman of the Sickle Cell Foundation Nigeria. He is also a Member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Advisory Panel of the Human Genetics Programme and a Medical Advisor to the American Embassy. He speaks to Morenike Taire.

HOW did you conceive the idea of providing home care services to old people?

In those days they didn’t have mobile phones so you just couldn’t say, Mummy, how are you today? My mother was strictly independent; she ran a little shop. My mother came here to live with us. She was in her 80s and gradually gradually we found we had to have somebody.

*Prof. Olu Akinyanju

My mother in law too. She was almost 90.

Would you say now that with better telecommunications technology there is now less need for this kind of care?

I don’t think so. If you had a mobile phone of course you will be able to communicate with your mother everyday but who gets up to cook? You just get to know maybe faster. Some of our clients, their children are maybe in America, they are in Lagos so they happy to have somebody to look after mother.

It’s not only old people. One time a man had a baby but the mother died during pregnancy so the man didn’t know what to do with it really so we had to come in. we looked after that baby in his house for two years or so. I don’t know whether he found a relation or married another wife. We had a girl who couldn’t walk because she had something in the spinal chord. She was lying down, she couldn’t use the legs, hardly use the arms. We have situations like that when we had to look after younger people.

Do you have an old people’s facility, like a Home?

No we don’t. I know a fellow who has just started because that’s a whole new thing. When we were looking after my mother and so on, because we were busy, nobody would have time to say oh Mama,…

What are you going to eat?

Or have you had your bath? Things that she could do before.

Giving injection

Sometimes people might need you only for the day; they will be back in the evening and then they can take over.

Does the care you render include medical care ?

Yes, up to a point. They may have their own doctor, retain him but we have to know what the doctor has prescribed so we know when to give him injection and so on and if we find any aspect we can handle we get our doctors in.

On the whole, in the cultural sense, how do people react to having nursing care in the home?

Many people want to but may not be able to afford it because it’s not a housegirl now. Sometimes they have dementia.

Like the former British Prime Minister

Raegan in America also had it. There was a time he couldn’t recognize his wife. He can just wee-wee (urinate) in that corner, forgetting that there’s a toilet there. They need care, they need understanding. And they can live for very very long . There are people who have stroke, just because of the stroke they can’t move well. Some have cancer.

Towards the end cancer may render them disabled in a way. Those ones don’t live long at all- 4 weeks, 2 months… By the time they call us to look after cancer it’s stretching towards the end whereas when they call us to look after a stroke or dementia it could be there for years and years.

Do you find that you get attached to some of them?

I remember a 90 year old- she finally died at about 92 or 94and they got used to one or two of the staff . She was fond of her beer and wine. Mama was safe to drink a glass of wine a day but she was drinking like two a day, drinking two bottles of beer so there was this day I went and spoke to Mama: “your children are worried”. She said they should allow her to do it.”

Doing what she enjoys

What else do you want me to do? The only thing I have left is just my beer. All my friends are gone. They used to take her in the car and drive around to give her breeze.

Just a change…

She was still able to do that but she said : “if this is what will kill me, let it” so I said okay, don’t worry, leave Mama alone. Let her do what she enjoys.

I felt attached to her. When she died my staff were given aso-ebi.

Do you also provide psychological care? Like in the case of dementia, for the family?

Sometimes we have to call in specialists to talk to our staff and we bring psychologists to see the family so that they will accept it that this is not a curse on you or your family but just as your heart may fail, the kidney may fail, the brain fails sometimes.

Any part of us can go. It may be your knee that is difficult but if it’s your brain that failed then you are in a situation where you’ll see somebody and say, who are you? Because you genuinely can no longer recognize people because your brain is not functioning as it should.

Source - Vanguard News

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