Sheffield : Shot boy ‘hid life from family’

BBc News

16/07/08

The father of a boy shot dead in Sheffield in a possible gang-related attack said he did not realise the lifestyle his son was involved in.

Tarek Chaiboub, 17, from Wincobank, was gunned down in a barber’s shop on Spital Street in Burgreave on Friday.

His father Rashid Chaiboub said: “I did not realise that his destiny was shaping outside of my hands.”

Police said Tarek, who died from gun shot wounds to his back, was probably carrying a gun when he was killed.

At a police news conference Mr Chaiboub urged other parents to have a close relationship with their children to prevent similar deaths.

He added: “Our son Tarek was growing up as a self-confident shining boy with an independent personality which I was proud of.

My message to parents is do not rely much on the independence of your kids Rashid Chaiboub, father of Tarek

“But he was not sharing much of his thoughts and feelings with us as a family.

“My message to parents is do not rely much on the independence of your kids. Get closer to them. Kids remain kids.”

The teenager who was known locally as GT had two sisters and a brother.

Police said they were pursuing some positive information from members of the public about the shooting, which could be gang-related.

Ch Supt Paul Broadbent said: “In my opinion there may well be a gang element involved in this particular crime.”

The senior officer said he could not yet confirm reports that the victim had been released from hospital a week earlier after a knife attack on him.

Mr Broadbent admitted Tarek was known to police before his death and said the investigation was looking at whether it was a gang-related attack.

The officer added: “This is a tragic, awful, loss of life. This was someone’s son, brother.”

Stab victim Tarek Caiboub, 17, shot dead a

week later in Sheffield

13/07/08

Times Online, UK

Tributes, both physical and virtual, to another victim of teenage gang violence were building up yesterday.

Tarek Chaiboub, 17, was shot dead outside a barber’s shop in the Burnage area of Sheffield on Friday afternoon. He was hit in the lower back by a number of rounds fired by a gunman who, one witness said, looked to be aged about 14 or 15.

The teenager, whose parents are believed to be from a Syrian background, was not a youthful innocent. He is believed to have been a member of a gang called the S3 Army, which is engaged in a feud with the S4 Army. The gangs are named after the postcode areas from which they originate.

Less than a week before his death, he was attacked and stabbed near his home in what is thought to have been a clash between the gangs. That attack took place soon after he had attended the funeral of another murder victim, who died after suffering knife wounds in June at a Sheffield nightclub.

The latest victim, who was known to South Yorkshire police because of his involvement in gang activity, had taken to carrying a gun after the stabbing incident. His killer is thought to have followed him into Freddie’s barber shop and shot him before the victim was able to draw his own weapon. He staggered outside and collapsed on the street. Police recovered a gun close to his body. South Yorkshire police refused to say what type of guns were used in the incident.

The city, in which the former Home Secretary David Blunkett is an MP, is not on the Government’s list of eight hotspot areas where the latest antigang measures will be focused.

But this is not the first time that rivalry between the S3 and S4 gangs has turned into gunfire on the streets.

Last October Jonathan Matondo, 16, was shot dead at a recreation ground in the Pitsmoor areas of the city. Nicknamed “Venomous”, Matondo knew the latest victim and also had gang connections.

Tributes at the scene of the latest shooting included flowers, candles and cards referring to the friendship between the two murdered teenagers.

One message left on a tribute page on the Bebo social networking site said: “I bet you and ‘Ven’ are repping Sheff to da fullest up dere man.”

Several messages described the victim, whose nickname was GT, in gangster slang as “a fallen soljah [soldier]”.

The Bebo site dedicated to him is titled “Rest In Peace Terror Kid” and attracted hundreds of messages over the weekend.

The dead youth’s identity was confirmed after a postmortem examination. A police spokesman said: “It showed that he died from injuries caused after he was shot in the back.”

Chief Superintendent Paul Broadbent, of Sheffield police, promised a tough response and cautioned gang members not to become involved in revenge attacks. Mr Broadbent said: “There may well be a gang element in this crime. Some may wish to take the law into their own hands. Let’s not do that – we can all genuinely work together on this. This is a tragic loss of life and we have resolved to make sure we find out who has committed this crime and the full force of the law is used to convict them. A robust police investigation has been launched.”

Mr Broadbent also emphasised that the threat of violence was not widespread in the city. “We are quite satisfied that the victim was the intended subject of the assault and he had been involved in some altercations previously.”

Friends of the dead youth said that he had three siblings and added that his mother had been overseas visiting relatives at the time he was killed.

One told the Sheffield Star: “It’s all to do with gang wars and it’s pathetic, really. They’re supposed to be friends. They spend their days killing their friends.”

Why’s Britain’s quality of life lagging?

Image google search ( adalvoice )

Telegraph.co.uk

16/07/08

Britons have the second lowest quality of life in Europe due to high fuel prices, rising energy bills, long working hours and lack of sunshine, according to research.

Despite having the highest net household income by far, Britain was ranked nine out of 10 countries in the uswitch.com quality of life index. Only Ireland came lower.

According to the survey, British families paid six per cent more than the average for petrol, 49 per cent more for gas and five per cent more for electricity.

Ann Robinson, director of consumer policy at uSwitch.com, said: “When it comes to quality of life we remain the sick man of Europe.”

Do you agree with the survey’s findings? Is quality of life in Britain as terrible as it seems?

What do the higher ranked countries, including Denmark and Poland, offer that Britain doesn’t?

How can the quality of life be improved?

Predicting Outcomes For Stomach Cancer Patients

ScienceDaily

July 16,2008

Researchers at Rhode Island Hospital have identified two potential molecular markers that may predict outcomes for patients with stomach cancer, one of the most common and fatal cancers worldwide.

According to the study, published in the July 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research, patients who had poor outcomes following surgery for stomach cancer also had extremely low amounts of two proteins, known as gastrokine 1 and 2 (GKN1 and GKN2), which are produced by normal stomach cells.

The study’s findings confirm previous research showing that once stomach cells become cancerous, they manufacture very low amounts of GKN1 and GKN2. However, this is the first known study to link these low protein levels with outcomes following stomach cancer surgery. Researchers say this discovery could eventually help physicians better determine and individualize therapy for stomach cancer, including which patients should be offered chemotherapy and other treatments in addition to surgery.

“Unfortunately, stomach cancer is difficult to cure unless it’s discovered early, but because the early stage of the disease has very few symptoms, the cancer is usually advanced by the time it’s diagnosed,” says lead author Steven Moss, MD, a gastroenterologist with Rhode Island Hospital and an associate professor of medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

“That’s what makes our findings so significant, because if the potential markers identified in our study can help predict a patient’s prognosis, we can decide right away which course of action to take and hopefully help patients live longer and more comfortably,” he adds.

According to the National Cancer Institute, approximately 760,000 cases of stomach cancer are diagnosed worldwide each year. Microscopically, stomach cancers can be subdivided into those which appear “diffuse” (a more aggressive form of cancer that can occur throughout the stomach and is more likely to spread) or “intestinal” (resembling the cells normally found only in the small or large intestines). Stomach cancers of both types are often triggered by a chronic infection brought on by Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), a common bacterium that causes stomach inflammation and ulcers. Surgery is the most common treatment for stomach cancer and can include partial or full removal of the stomach. The five-year relative survival rate of patients with stomach cancer is 24 percent.

Moss, an expert on H.pylori, and colleagues initially set out to learn more about what the bacterium does to normal stomach cells. They focused on GKN1 and GKN2 because these proteins are also suppressed by stomach infections caused by H. pylori.

After looking at tissue samples from more than 150 stomach cancer patients who underwent surgery, the researchers discovered a near total suppression of GKN1 and GKN2 in the majority of patients. This was particularly evident in those patients with the diffuse variant of stomach cancer. More than three-quarters of these patients had extremely low levels of GKN1 and 85 percent had nearly nonexistent levels of GKN2.

Furthermore, in those patients with the intestinal variant of stomach cancer, very low levels of GKN 1 or GKN 2 at the time of surgery were associated with a significantly worse outcome. The median survival was about two years in these patients compared to a survival of more than 10 years for patients with normal levels of GKN1 or GKN2.

Researchers do not yet know the exact function of GKN1 and GKN2. They say further studies are needed to demonstrate the mechanisms responsible for the loss of GKN1 and GKN2 in this patient popoulation as well as the clinical biomarker potential of these two proteins.

The study included tissue samples from 155 patients with stomach cancer (81 men and 74 women) who underwent surgery at Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital, both in Providence, R.I. The average age at surgery was 72 years. All four stages of cancer were represented in the study, including 37 patients with Stage I, 44 patients with Stage II, 34 patients with Stage III, and 40 patients with Stage IV. More than 61 patients were being treated for the intestinal variant of stomach cancer while 90 patients had the diffuse variant.

The study was funded by research grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Study co-authors were Murray Resnick, Edmond Sabo, John Gao, Patricia A. Meitner, and Rose Tavares from Rhode Island Hospital and Alpert Medical School; John Rommel and Anna Rubin from Alpert Medical School; Jin-Woo Lee from Inha University Hospital, South Korea; and Bruce R. Westley and Felicity E.B. May from the Northern Institute for Cancer Research at University of Newscastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom.

‘Condoms won’t change HIV rates’

July 16, 2008 09:33pm

News.com.au

Article from: AAP

A SOUTH African Catholic cardinal says the rampant HIV infection rate in Africa would not change if the church ordered its faithful to use condoms during sex.

Speaking on the SBS Dateline program tonight while visiting Sydney for World Youth Day, Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier said he had long been opposed to the use of condoms to prevent HIV.

When asked why the church had not instructed its followers to use condoms to slow the spread of HIV, he said such a call would make little difference.

Uganda had turned around an HIV prevalence rate of 29 per cent, reducing it to six per cent in 10 years, using a program that included abstinence for unmarried Ugandans, monogamy within couples and condoms issued only to married couples, he said.

But condom use in South Africa had not arrested the HIV infection rate, one of the highest in the world, Cardinal Napier said.

“The country with the highest distribution rate of condoms is South Africa, and the opposite result is happening,” Cardinal Napier said.

“I don’t think the death rate is because the people, they are not using the condom, and yet it’s available.

“You expect that because people are hearing from bishops, `You must use a condom’, that they will do what the bishops say?

“We have already been preaching all our lives, don’t have sex outside of marriage.”

The church had faith in the ability of people to control their own lives and avoid HIV infection, Cardinal Napier said.

“At the moment, if you go on a policy of condom distribution as the only solution to HIV and AIDS, you are telling people that they cannot take control of their own lives,” he said.

“And, therefore, I think you are doing them an injustice by saying: `You are so stupid. Even though this disease is a killer, you cannot take control of your own lives’.”

After 30 years, US to send diplomats to Iran

A school boy poses in front of an anti-US mural in Tehran,

Iran. Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters

Ewen MacAskill in Washington

( Reuters )  16/07/08

A school boy poses in front of an anti-US mural in Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters

The US is planning to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years, a remarkable turnaround in policy by president George Bush who has pursued a hawkish approach to Iran throughout his time in office.

The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section in Tehran, a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country.

The news comes at a critical time in US-Iranian relations. After weeks that have seen tensions rise with Israel conducting war games aimed at Iran and Tehran carrying out long-range missile tests, a thaw appears to be under way.

The White House announced today that William Burns, a senior state department official, is to be sent to Switzerland on Saturday to hear Tehran’s response to a European offer aimed at resolving the nuclear standoff.

Burns is to sit down at the table with Iranian officials in spite of Bush repeatedly ruling out direct talks on the nuclear issue until Iran suspended its uranium enrichment progamme, a possible first step on the way to building a nuclear weapon capability.

A frequent complaint of the Iranians is that they want to deal direct with the Americans instead of its surrogates, Britain, France and Germany.

Bush has taken a hard line with Iran throughout the last seven years but, in the dying days of his administration, it is believed he is keen to have a positive legacy that he can point to.

The return of US diplomats to Iran is dependent on agreement by Tehran. But president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicated earlier this week that he is not against the opening of a US mission, saying Iran will consider favourably any request aimed at boosting relations between the two countries.

US interests in the country at present are looked after by the Swiss embassy. The British government restored its embassy in Tehran after Labour’s 1997 general election victory as part of a policy of constructive diplomacy with countries that had previously been branded rogue states.

Creation of a US interest section would see diplomats stationed in Tehran for the first time since the hostage crisis that began when hundreds of students, as part of the Iranian revolution that led to fall of the Shah, stormed the US embassy in 1979 and held the occupants until 1981.

The special interests section would be similar to the one in Havana, Cuba. The US broke off relations with Cuba in 1961 after Castro’s take-over but US diplomats returned in 1977.

The special interests section carries out all the functions of an embassy. It is in terms of protocol part of the Swiss embassy but otherwise is staffed by Americans and independent of the Swiss.

There has been an intense debate within the Bush administration over Iran, with the vice-president, Dick Cheney, in favour of a military strike against Iranian nuclear plants and the state department in favour of diplomacy.

The state department has been pressing the White House for the last two years to re-establish diplomatic relations with Tehran by setting up an interest section.

The state department is keen that the move should not be interpreted as a sign of weakness.

Sending Burns, who left Washington last night, to Geneva and the establishment of an interests section undercuts one of the main planks of foreign policy advocated by the Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, who argues for direct negotiations with Iran. The White House has been working in tandem over the last month with Obama’s Republican rival, John McCain.

The US has had to rely on British diplomats based in Tehran, as well as other diplomats in the capital, for information about the inner workings of Iranian politics.

Having its own interests section would give its diplomats access to students, dissidents and others. It would also process visa applications, at present handled by a small office in Dubai, which is difficult for Iranians to get to.

Ahmadinejad told a reporter earlier this week, in response to a question about a US interests section: “We will receive favourably any action which will help to reinforce relations between the peoples.”

He added: “We have not received any official request but we think that the development of relations between the two peoples is something correct.”

That sentiment was echoed last month by secretary of state Condoleezza Rice who told reporters: “We want more Iranians visiting the United States … We are determined to reach out to the Iranian people.”

Iran has an interests section in Washington, which would make it harder for Tehran to deny the Americans a similar arrangement.

Rice set up a group to study the feasibility of re-establishing a presence after the idea cropped up repeatedly in discussions among Washington think tanks.

Asked last month about the idea, she would not confirm or deny it was under consideration. But she said indicated that the present arrangement where there is an American visa office for Iranians in Dubai was inadequate.

“We know that it’s difficult for Iranians sometimes to get to Dubai.’” she said.

Terror suspect can challenge U.S. detention: court

By James Vicini

16/07/08

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President George W. Bush has the power to order the imprisonment of an al Qaeda suspect in the United States but the detainee must be able to challenge his status as an “enemy combatant,” a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

The court, based in Richmond, Virginia, split 5-4 on both issues in a ruling about a Qatari national, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the only foreign national held in the United States as an “enemy combatant.”

If the government’s allegations about Marri are true, then the U.S. Congress gave Bush the power to detain him as part of its authorization for use of military force after the September 11 attacks by al Qaeda in 2001, the court ruled.

But the court also said Marri, held in a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina, for more than five years without being charged, had not been given an adequate opportunity to challenge his detention.

The court sent the case back to a federal judge in South Carolina for new proceedings on the evidence of whether Marri is an “enemy combatant” subject to military detention.

Jonathan Hafetz of the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, one of the lawyers representing Marri, said Tuesday’s ruling “flatly rebukes the administration’s view of untrammeled executive power, unchecked by any court.”

The decision was the latest scrutiny of Bush’s war on terrorism policies adopted after the September 11 attacks.

The Supreme Court rebuked Bush in a landmark ruling last month stating that prisoners held at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba can go before federal judges in Washington to seek their release.

Marri entered the United States on September 10, 2001, and was said by a captured al Qaeda member to have come to help operatives plotting a second wave of attacks.

A legal U.S. resident, Marri was initially detained in December 2001 in the investigation of the September 11 attacks.

He later was indicted in Illinois, where he attended school, for credit card fraud, making false statements to the FBI and other charges. Marri pleaded not guilty.

‘FRAUGHT WITH DANGER’

The U.S. government dropped the charges on in June 2003, when Bush designated him an enemy combatant. Marri was taken to the brig in Charleston.

The appeals court issued seven separate opinions totaling more than 200 pages. But Judge William Traxler’s opinion was the controlling one for the divided court.

“In these uncertain times, we must tread carefully when balancing our need for national security with our rights as individuals,” he wrote.

“This case is fraught with danger to individual rights and for that reason I expressly limit the reach of my opinion and decide no more than is explicit and necessary to address the issues presented to us.”

Spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the Justice Department was pleased the ruling recognized Bush’s authority to capture and detain al Qaeda agents who come to the United States.

He said the government is studying the court’s decision that also gives Marri a new opportunity to challenge the factual basis for his detention and will respond when the case goes back before the judge in South Carolina.

The ruling by the full appeals court did not go as far as the one last year by a three-judge panel which held that Marri must be released from military custody.

Only two others have been held as enemy combatants inside the United States since the September 11 attacks.

In January 2006, Jose Padilla, held for three years at the same brig in Charleston, had his case transferred to a criminal court in Miami, where he was later convicted on charges of offering his services to terrorists.

Yaser Esam Hamdi, another U.S. citizen held at the brig for two years, was deported to Saudi Arabia after the Supreme Court in 2004 upheld his right to challenge his detention.

(Editing by Kristin Roberts and John O’Callaghan)