#almost 2 days it took them to open a donations account from the national bank. 2 whole days.

[mchiti]

Imagine having a country that is struggling to send aid, especially to villages, when survivors desperately need it. Imagine same country refusing help from foreigners for politics. it's all fun and game until you need france and go visit macron for international relations though, don't you. acting though when it's about your people in misery.

[kerahlekung]

Peguam UMNO cabar kewujudan Sekolah Vernakular..

Peguam UMNO cabar kewujudan Sekolah Vernakular...

Inilah Peguam yg sama membela budak pencuri di Lowyat dulu..Depa ni angkat isu Sekolah Vernakular tu bukan lah lah sebab apapun..melainkan nak berpolitik.. panaskan sentimen kaum dan agama.. Yang Peguam UMNO sorang ni kononnya nak hapuskankan Sekolah Vernakular, Yang MCA hantar peguam nak mencelah mempertahankan Sekolah Vernakular.. Ini mainan UMNO dan MCA nak tunjukkan masing masing mahu jadi Juara Melayu..dan Sorang Jaguh Cina, Inilah game perkauman dan Kelompok Ashabiyah dalam BN.. Sama mcm Kes Jawi..MCA mula mainkan sentime menolak Jawi, Dan DAP terperangkap. UMNO dan PAS pulak berlakon mempertahankan Jawi, depa menyerang DAP.. masing masing berlakon jadi juara kaum masing2..inilah Politik Ashabiyah..depa guna sentimen kaum untuk Politik..

Isu Sekolah Vernakular ni bukan baru..Dah 60 Tahun.. UMNO BN dulu tak buat apa pun.. Masa tu depa menang 2/3 Parlimen, Depa nak pinda Perlembagaan pun boleh..Jadi tak payah beretorik... Dulu Menteri, hatta anak Ketua Pemuda UMNO,Asyraf Wajdi pun hantar anak sekolah Cina..tak payah pura pura berlakon jadi Jaguh Melayu.. Nak ubah sistem pendidikan bukan kerja mudah..bukan kerja Politik.. ia satu proses yang panjang.. Yang geng PH pun ramai yg terperangkap dgn Puak Ashabiyah UMNO dan MCA.. cerita budak boleh cakap Melayu atau tidak..bukan bergantung pada sistem persekolah Vernakular..tapi peranan Ibu Bapa.. pergaulan pelajar tu.. Ramainya jer orang Cina, hatta keputusan SPM dan PT3, yang ramai dapat keputusan yg baik dalam BM tetap anak Cina.. jadi berhentilah beretorik.. anak Melayu pun ramai yg fail BM kalau nak cari sebab..

Kalau orang tanya, Kenapa perlu hantar anak sekolah Cina, dah ada sekolah Kebangsaan.. Sepatutnya soalan itu kita kena tanya pada diri sendiri.. Kenapa ada Ibu bapa hantar Sekolah Pondok ? Sekolah Tahfiz ? Sekolah Agama sedangkan ada Sekolah kebangsaan.. Setiap ibu bapa ada kehendak dan sebab mereka sendiri..tak payah retorik sangatlah.. Sama lah game depa dalam isu RUU 355 dulu.. Yang UMNO dan PAS berlakon perjuangkan Islam.. Yang MCA dan MIC berlakon mempertahankan Hak bukan Islam..  Yg PAS dan UMNO berlakon nak bentang pindaan RUU355.. yg MCA hantar 100 peguam nak lawan RUU355..

Jadi hargailah sistem dan peliharalah sebaiknya kepelbagaian dalam Negara kita.. ada bermacam jenis Sekolah, Sekolah Agama, Sekolah Tahfiz, Sekolah Cina, Sekolah Swasta..Sekolah International.. Tugas Kerajaan hari ini, Perkasakan Sekolah Kebangsaan.. Jadi kan Sekolah Kebangsaan sekolah terbaik.. Lahirkan dari Sekolah Kebangsaan mereka yg berjaya menguasai pelbagai bahasa termasuk Mandarin.. sepertimana dulu kerajaan memperkenalkan JQAF.. akhirnya esok, masyarakat sendiri akan berubah.. - Ipohmali

The many victims of 

Najib’s ‘reign of terror’...

Iskandar Puteri MP Lim Kit Siang called it the “night of the long knives”. It may not have been the most appropriate description but to many Malaysians, it was a “reign of terror”. It started with the unceremonious removal of attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail on July 27, 2015 and ended on May 9, 2018. Over this period, it was “law of the jungle” as almost all state agencies discarded their standard operating procedures (SOPs). What started as a fortnight-long exercise of destroying systems, establishments, procedures and even law and order, extended for almost three years. It ended only when the BN regime under Abdul Najib Razak was booted out of office. During that period, families were ruined and many lives destroyed. For others, their careers were wrecked and their lives changed forever. As we sit back and learn bits and pieces that have emerged in court hearings and other official domains, we have to look back and thank ourselves. Had we not brought a change at the hustings last year, our destiny and our lives would have gotten worse. In a Malaysiakini commentary on June 11, 2017, I paid tribute to the unsung heroes of the 1MDB scandal. More than two years later, while things may have changed, there has been no closure to one of the darkest moments in our history. While we know the reasons for the sacking of then deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin and rural and regional development minister Shafie Apdal, the details of other events remain murky.

Abdul Gani Patail

While there are many versions (most of them are hearsay) of what transpired, the other chief protagonists in this series of episodes have maintained silence except for the occasional outbursts from which Malaysians are left to draw their own conclusions. Besides Abdul Gani, there was former Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission chief Abu Kassim Mohamed, former Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz and a host of other personalities who suffered in the hands of a few who used the apparatuses of the state to prevent the dissemination of the truth.

When the Najib administration launched this multi-faceted operation, the basic democratic principles of the rule of law and separation of powers were thrown out of the window. There was no room too for good governance, accountability and integrity. These resulted in key institutions being destabilised. It was obvious that all these were done for one purpose only – to cover the shenanigans in 1MDB, and to a larger extent, protect Najib. A systematic attack was launched on the independence, impartiality and professionalism of key institutions including the Attorney-General’s Chambers, Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM), Bank Negara, the MACC and the auditor-general. We knew something was amiss in the MACC when two members of its advisory panel, Lim Chee Wee and Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim, traded barbs over the latter’s decision to publicly exonerate Najib.

 Zeti Akhtar Aziz

When the arrest of MACC deputy public prosecutor Ahmad Sazilee Abdul Khairi who had been handling the 1MDB probe, took place, the setting for a “rule by fear” was already in place. The unwarranted and immediate transfer of two of his colleagues – director of special operations Bahri Mohamad Zin and communications chief Rohaizad Yaakob – reinforced the belief that the state won’t box to Queensbury rules. Upon his appointment as the “new” MACC chief in May last year, Mohd Shukri Abdull threw some light on the witch-hunt, claiming he was bullied and threatened during the course of his investigation the 1MDB and the SRC International scandals. “My fellow investigators were under immense pressure, including having their witnesses spirited away. Abu Kassim and I were accused of being traitors out to overthrow the government. We were doing our best to save the country and recover money from abroad,” he was quoted as saying. What was the role of Ali Hamsa , the then chief secretary to the government? Wasn’t he present when Abdul Gani was marched out of his office? Didn’t he issue the transfer order for the MACC officers? In retirement, he may be happy playing with his grandchildren and tending the garden, but doesn’t he owe it to the people of Malaysia to tell the truth? Abdul Gani, the biggest victim in this whole malodorous affair, is in private practice and has yet to speak publicly on the issue. Perhaps bound by his conscience more than secrecy laws, he maintains a low profile and out of public view. Abu Kassim now heads the National Centre for Governance, Integrity and Anti-Corruption (GIACC) but in October last year, he publicly proclaimed that the MACC had found Najib’s claim that he received a donation from a Saudi royalty was false.

Ali Hamsa

Asked to clarify a MACC statement made in 2015 that the money that was deposited in Najib’s personal account was a donation, he said: “At that particular time, in that statement, we said it was a donation. But after we had some engagement (with other authorities), we discovered the truth.” But he has yet to comment on his “transfer” from MACC to Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) to be a lecturer. Neither has he said anything about other events, including the closing of many files by his successor and the arrest and transfer of his officers. Other players, too, seem to have accepted it as ‘takdir’ or fate, but some have left it to the Almighty for divine retribution. Maybe it is a Malaysian malaise or it’s the culture. The reluctance to be open – however nasty or unpalatable – is not a trait that we can be proud of. That said, we need a closure to those dark days when even printing the word ‘1MDB’ was taboo in newspapers. Are we going to continue to read, savour and be entertained by fake news or do we want the truth? The answer is obvious and perhaps a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (like the one in South Africa) will bring about the closure to the atrocity and injustice perpetrated on the people of this country in the bid by a few to save one man. - R.Nadeswaran,mk

cheers. Sumber asal: Peguam UMNO cabar kewujudan Sekolah Vernakular.. Baca selebihnya di Peguam UMNO cabar kewujudan Sekolah Vernakular..

[climbdevon]

In Pursuit of Snow in Austria

First published in the Professional Mountaineer - Winter 2019. Re-published here with author and magazine consent. Words and photos (unless otherwise credited) by Cath Bateman.

As luck would have it a friend of mine has access to a chalet in Austria and this presented an opportunity to seek out the snow I hankered after. This also gave me the chance to explore an area that not only yielded the fantastic substance in huge quantities (winter 2018/19) but also has easy access to snow sports and all the essentials needed for shopping, dining out and hiring kit.

Styria (Stiermark in German) is a state in the southeast of Austria. Easily accessible by car or train from Vienna in under a couple of hours it offers excellent snowshoeing and a host of other snow-related activities. The Northern Limestone Alps (German: Nördliche Kalkalpen, also called the Northern Calcareous Alps) cut through this state on a west-east axis. These have been worn down into canyons and cliffs such as the Enns Gorge in the Gesäuse National Park. The park itself is located in the mountainous Upper Styrian region covering large parts of the Gesäuse range within the Ennstal Alps and the steep water gap of the Enns river between Admont and Hieflau.

Our snowshoeing centered on the quiet area of the commune and city Mariazell, 143 kilometres north of Graz at an altitude of 868m, and a small hamlet called Lahnsattel, 1 km east of the Lahn Saddle (German: Lahnsattel). The Saddle, at an altitude of 1,006m, is a high mountain pass between the Bundesländer of Lower Austria and Styria. It is traversed by Federal Highway B23 and connects the Salza river valley from Mariazell with the Mürz river valley. !e local peaks here are between 1,200-1,799 metres. Grosser Goller, 1,766m and 3 km away from the Saddle, is a popular back-country ski-tour and hiking/snowshoeing route. The summits are mostly just above the treeline so the routes are a combination of pastures and forestry tracks. Summer and winter routes are detailed on various maps that we bought online before our trip. The Freytag & Berndt maps that came with a German booklet describe some routes in the area. The start of routes are well-signposted and along tracks there are red-white-red markings. Be careful though, depending on the level of snow-plastering, these signs and marks can be covered! Stiermark produce avalanche forecasts with easy-to-understand graphics and translate them into English, making it an invaluable tool for planning your days out; http://www.lawine-steiermark.at/lagebericht/avalanche-bulletin.

Over the New Year and beyond, and much to our joy, huge amounts of snow fell for almost a week. The soft powder snow made our snowshoeing adventures so much fun, particularly for those in our group who had not tried it before. Hans, who looked after the snow clearance for the hamlet, referred to it as “schneeeschwimming” and the day we left we were certainly wallowing in it. Lahnsattel is known locally as ‘avalanche saddle’, the truth of which became clearer following some serious avalanches in early January cutting off the local ski-hills and causing damage to infrastructure.

Our days out snowshoeing were all within 30 minutes’ drive from Lahnsattel and were planned using the maps, guidebooks and careful attention to the avalanche forecast. One of our routes took in Wildalpe (1,523m) from the north, zigzagging up through the forest on a mixture of wide forest tracks and small paths. We gained the summit from the relatively steep east shoulder, which made the heel-raisers, a feature on the MSR and TSL snowshoes, handy to take the strain off our calf muscles. Close to the summit some ski-tourers appeared, having ascended by another route. This was the only day we encountered anyone else at all outside of a ski resort. Heading back the way we came the going was much more like “snow-swimming” and we cut through the trees glades to return to our chalet, the log fire and the schnapps!

The repair kit, which usually sits at the bottom of my bag, came in useful when a clevis pin sheared off of a snowshoe. We fixed this with a nut and bolt and continued to enjoy the rest of the day out. In addition to the nuts and bolts (Nylock type nuts provide a more durable mend) it’s useful to have a small spanner, some zip-ties, duck-tape and a multi-tool or Swiss army knife. Usually a few pieces are sufficient to make it off the hill but there was one occasion on another trip where a snowshoe with a tubular frame broke and was splinted using the metal handle from a saucepan!

Reasons to go and top tips

The area around Lahnsattel and Mariazell is not only a fantastic place to enjoy snowshoeing and practice navigation but also to try out your language skills – German or Austro-Bavarian – do not presume English is spoken here! (We had many laughs hiring langlauf equipment with only the very basics of verbal communication). There is enough information with good avalanche and weather forecasts readily available to help inform you before setting out. !ere are many hills under 2,000 metres that are accessible from a range of aspects to take account of snow-loading on the slopes. Take care to check the map scales and contour spacings as the micro navigation can be challenging, especially for example when using a 1:50,000 scale Kompass map with 100 metre contours.

There are set tracks for langlauf (Nordic skiing) in virtually every hamlet and for a few euros, you can hire skis, boots and poles and ski the routes varying in distance and gradient.

Or, if you prefer, you can go for an afternoon of down-hill skiing in the small resorts at Mariazell and Annaberg where you can hire all ski equipment including snowshoes and poles.

Note that this area is a “traditional” place, where restaurants and shops usually shut on Sundays and Bank Holidays, so make sure you plan for the kit hire and buy enough food as only petrol stations tend to be open. These, however, do sell the essentials (crisps, beer and wine) in addition to fuel!

This is a great place for guiding clients on snowshoeing adventures with plenty of routes. There are also lots of culturally interesting places to visit such as the Mariazell Basilica, also known as Basilica Mariä Geburt (Basilica of the Birth of the Virgin Mary). It is the most important pilgrimage destination in Austria and one of the most visited shrines in Europe. Gastronomes should try the Styrian pumpkin seed oil; a dark green intensely-flavoured oil made in this area. It has an intense nutty taste and is rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids. Pumpkin seed oil serves as a salad dressing. The typical Styrian dressing consists of pumpkin seed oil and cider vinegar. The oil is also used for desserts, giving ordinary vanilla ice cream a nutty taste. It is considered a real delicacy in Austria and Slovenia, and a few drops are added to pumpkin soup and other local dishes.

Finally, and as always, International Mountain Leaders should check the requirements and legal obligations before operating in Austria.

Images: Main Photo. Taking a breather to admire the north 1. Headed up a typical track through the woods, using the snow baskets in fine powder snow made progress more efficient. © Emily Coates. 2. The steepest part of the route up to Wildalpe, the use of heel-raisers was helpful in this section. 3. Consulting the map en route to Wilde Alp. © Chris Bradshaw. 4. Using the repair kit in anger, the snowshoe was repaired swiftly, and we carried on our journey.

AN AVERAGE CUP OF COFFEE COSTS £2.50. WERE THESE WORDS WORTH THAT MUCH?

This is a reader supported blog, so every cup of coffee helps us to create new Climb Devon journal entries and bring in guest authors. 100% of every donation goes directly to fueling our authors with coffee. We deeply appreciate your support!

[tortuga-aak]

Reporters managed to buy a spine and 2 human heads over the internet while investigating America's lax trade in body parts

REUTERS/Wade Payne

It is possible to buy certain body parts, such as heads or parts of a spine, in the US for as little as $300 with very little vetting involved. 

When the bodies are donated for medical research it isn't always clear what will happen to them.

The companies that handle these body parts can also turn a big profit from the sale of human remains.

Whilst failing to do their due diligence into where the part is going and what it is being used for. 

Families, with often no other choice, can be left in the dark as to what has happened to a loved one's remains. 

  TOWNSEND, Tennessee (Reuters) - Cody Saunders was born in 1992 with failing kidneys and a hole in his heart.

When he died on his 24th birthday, he had endured 66 surgeries and more than 1,700 rounds of dialysis, his parents said. Some days, he hid the pain in upbeat selfies on Facebook. Other days, he shared an excruciating reality, posing in a hospital bed with bandages strapped across his scarred chest.

On his Facebook profile, Cody wrote that he was looking for a girlfriend who will accept "me for me."

"Y am I ugly," he posted on Christmas Day 2015.

Cody lived with his parents in an aged motorhome at an East Tennessee campground. When he was well enough, he worked on a farm with his father, feeding cattle, putting up hay, hauling molasses in a dump truck from one barn to another.

On August 2, 2016, Cody died after a heart attack on his way home from dialysis. Too poor to bury or cremate him, Cody’s parents donated their son’s body to an organization called Restore Life USA. The facility sells donated bodies – in whole or by part – to researchers, universities, medical training facilities and others.

"I couldn’t afford nothin’ else," father Richard explained.

The month after Cody died, Restore Life sold part of the young man’s body: his cervical spine. The transaction required just a few email exchanges and $300, plus shipping.

Whether Restore Life vetted the buyer is unclear. But if workers there had verified their customer’s identity, they would have learned he was a reporter from Reuters. The news agency was seeking to determine how easy it might be to buy human body parts and whether those parts would be useful for medical research. In addition to the spine, Reuters later purchased two human heads from Restore Life, each priced at $300.

The transactions demonstrate the startling ease with which human body parts may be bought and sold in the United States. Neither the sales nor the shipments violated any laws, say lawyers, professors and government officials who follow the issue closely. Although it’s illegal to sell organs used for transplants, it’s perfectly legal in most states to sell body parts that were donated for research or education. Buying wine over the Internet is arguably more tightly controlled, generally requiring at minimum proof of age.

To comply with legal, ethical and safety considerations before the purchases, Reuters consulted with Angela McArthur, who directs the body donation program at the University of Minnesota Medical School. She took immediate custody of the spine and heads for Reuters, inspecting and storing them at the medical school.

REUTERS/Craig Lassig

McArthur said she was troubled by how easily the body parts were acquired and by the failure of Restore Life to perform proper due diligence.

"It’s like the Wild West," McArthur said. "Anybody could have ordered these specimens and had them delivered to their home for whatever purpose they want."

McArthur examined the remains and the documentation included with them to determine how useful the parts would be for medical research. Her review was based on national safety and ethics standards she helped draft for the American Association of Tissue Banks, the American Association of Clinical Anatomists and the University of Minnesota.

She concluded that the medical history Restore Life provided was insufficient, and that the accompanying paperwork was sloppy and inadequate. For those reasons, the specimens did not meet standards for use at her university, she said.

"I haven’t seen anything this egregious before," McArthur said. "I worry about the future of body donation and public trust in body donation when we have situations like this."

"Respect and dignity"

Contacted several months after the sales, Restore Life President James Byrd briefly explained his approach to business.

"Organizations like ours are what I consider accountable because, especially us, we have direct contact with the donor family," he said. "And there’s a certain level of respect and dignity that is involved there because we have that personal relationship with them."

Byrd subsequently declined to be interviewed or answer written questions. But he emailed a statement in which he criticized Reuters for making the purchases.

"It’s obvious your team at Thomson Reuters has no concern for those that seek help from our organization," he wrote. "You only wish to hurt those that need help the most."

Byrd added that Restore Life does good work by supplying body parts to researchers working to cure cancer, dementia and other diseases.

"We help countless people through a wide range of research working with world-renowned researchers," he wrote.

Whatever good Restore Life hoped to achieve by supplying these body parts, McArthur said, its poor handling of the remains "miserably failed" to serve researchers and the three donors: Cody Saunders and the unidentified man and woman whose heads Byrd sold to Reuters.

McArthur said the relatives of donors, whose intentions are noble during a difficult time, deserve better from the industry.

"People think they are doing the right thing, and they want to fulfill their loved ones’ wishes," said McArthur, who formerly chaired Minnesota’s body donation commission and serves on the leadership council of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists. "I know they would feel exploited to know that something like this happened."

Thomas Champney, an anatomy professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, also expressed alarm at the ease of the sales.

"Human body parts should not be bought and sold in the same manner as used refrigerators," he said.

The broker

Byrd, 50, has been in the body parts business for two decades. An East Tennessee native, the body broker recently was runner-up in a stand-up comedy contest called The Funniest Person in the Tri-Cities, the region surrounding Kingsport, Johnson City and Bristol.

Before opening Restore Life, Byrd directed a nonprofit tissue bank called American Donor Services, then located near Memphis.

For several years, one of American Donor’s chief orthopedic customers was a Texas firm affiliated with a company that distributed bone grafts made in part from human tissue. In 2005, according to sworn testimony in a civil lawsuit, American Donor shifted to a new chief orthopedic customer. The new buyer paid as much as $10,000 per donor, provided a $200,000 line of credit and began managing American Donor’s financial affairs.

Byrd left American Donor Services a short while later, worked briefly for a vascular tissue bank, and then founded Restore Life in 2008. Based in Elizabethton, Tennessee, Restore Life obtains bodies mostly from people in Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina. In return for body donations, Restore Life offers to pick up the deceased, cremate the unused remains for free and return them to the family.

In 2011, Byrd spoke publicly about Restore Life in a presentation to the commissioners in nearby Sullivan County. Officials there had grown frustrated by the increasing cost to taxpayers of cremating the indigent. According to a recording of that meeting, Byrd explained that he could help the county. He also noted that many families who donated to Restore Life did so for financial reasons: All expenses were covered, including cremation.

"We have become more a service for those indigent and pauper cases that can’t afford a funeral," Byrd told the commissioners. "It’s a perfect fit for situations where families don’t have the funding or sometimes where it’s left to the county for funding."

Restore Life’s informal arrangement with Sullivan County to take indigent bodies continues today, county officials said. A few times a month, they said, the medical examiner or other officials refer pauper cases to Byrd for possible donation. At the 2011 meeting, County Attorney Dan Street said a formal arrangement with Byrd was unnecessary because officials were merely referring the indigent to him, without any endorsement implied.

"This company is simply going to come and take these bodies," Street told commissioners. "We’re simply getting out of the way and letting them do what private enterprise does best."

Since it opened, Restore Life has grown almost every year, according to the latest available tax records filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

Records show that Restore Life’s annual revenue rose from $49,251 in 2009 to $1.1 million in 2016. Income also increased, the records show. In 2009, expenses exceeded revenue by $1,277. Last year, revenues were $187,884 higher than expenses. The tax records show the charity’s net assets were $354,556 on Aug. 31, 2016, the last date for which records are available.

Byrd lives and works in a Tennessee town where the median household income is $30,000. The nonprofit he operates paid him a salary of $113,000 last year, the tax records show.

The donor

REUTERS/Wade Payne

Angie Saunders recalls that during her pregnancy, there were no signs of trouble in her prenatal check-ups or ultrasound tests. But when Cody was born on August 2, 1992, he arrived in grave distress.

He was moved from the county hospital to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, where he stayed for three months. He was diagnosed with VATER Syndrome, a condition involving multiple birth defects.

Besides the hole in his heart and failing kidneys, Cody was born without a rectum. For the first two years of his life, Cody’s parents said, they fed him through a gastrostomy tube.

Cody had so many dietary restrictions – no milk, no chocolate, no tomatoes, no salt – that he settled on dry Fruit Loops as his go-to meal. For dessert, he took a couple of bites from a stick of butter.

Cody needed dialysis three times a week, four hours per session. Given her son’s needs, his mother couldn’t work much. His father told every employer upfront that his child came first.

"Half of his life, if it wasn’t the hospital, it was dialysis," Richard said. "I went through a lot of jobs."

When Cody was about 9 years old, his parents said, he received a kidney transplant that transformed him. It freed him from constant dialysis. He learned to swim and had more time for school.

"I wouldn’t say he was normal," Richard said, "but at least we wasn’t having to be tied down as much."

The new kidney lasted a little more than five years, and when it failed, Cody was rushed by helicopter to the hospital for a monthlong stay, his parents said. Dialysis began anew.

At 14, Cody won a children’s art contest. The charity, American Kidney Fund, flew him to Washington, D.C. On a contest questionnaire, he listed his favorite things, including gym class, coloring, and riding his bike. His favorite actor was Scooby Doo. His role models: his dad and his mom. When he grew up, Cody wrote, he hoped to work with his father.

Cody left school in the 11th grade. His parents say he was reading at a second-grade level. He worked on farms as often as he could with his dad, and in the winter they sold firewood. He chewed Skoal tobacco and played pool at a local club. To protect his kidneys and heart, he didn’t drink alcohol. But he didn’t always follow doctors’ advice. He could drink a six-pack of Mello Yello soda in a day, his parents said.

In his final years, Cody grew sad and lonely. His parents noticed, and so did his friends on Facebook. He was weary of the pills, the dialysis, the hospitals and the constant reminders of what he could and could not do, his parents said.

"I think not just his body was tired, but his whole mind was done," his father said.

"He wasn’t scared," his mother said. "He was ready."

Cody’s heart stopped on his birthday, August 2, 2016. Not long afterward, Restore Life collected his body.

Ordering a spine

On August 29, 2016, Reuters reporter Brian Grow sent an inquiry via email to Restore Life’s Byrd. At the time, the news agency knew nothing about Cody Saunders.

To contact Byrd, the reporter used his real name and his Thomson Reuters email account.

"We are seeking pricing, including shipping costs, to procure one cervical spine specimen for purposes of a research project involving non-transplant tissue," the query said. The term "non-transplant tissue" refers to body parts, such as heads and spines, which cannot be transplanted into living humans.

The request from the reporter provided a delivery address in Minneapolis, a few miles from the University of Minnesota’s anatomy lab. The query concluded, "We look forward to hearing from you."

Byrd responded about an hour later. "Thank you for your email, I do not believe we have worked with you in the past. How did you hear about our organization?"

"Your firm was referred to us by an industry contact," Grow replied.

Byrd asked if Grow wanted a full cervical spine – the vertebrae and tissue in the neck, just below the skull. When told yes, Byrd replied that the price would be $300, plus $150 shipping. He attached X-rays, which were described as belonging to a 24-year-old male.

Three days later, Grow accepted the offer.

Byrd replied, "Thank you again for allowing us the opportunity to work with you and your organization." He added three questions. One concerned billing, and one asked to confirm that the spine should be sent frozen, not thawed. Byrd’s third question was whether the specimen would be used for "medical research or medical education."

In addition to determining how easy it might be to buy body parts, Reuters sought to assess the quality of the specimens and the documentation that came with them. When the reporter responded simply, "It’s being used for medical research," Byrd closed the deal.

"Thank you again (sic) the opportunity to work with you and your organization," he wrote.

McArthur said the Reuters purchase was legal and ethical. No law prohibits such sales, she said, and the news agency was conducting legitimate research. Byrd, she added, broke no laws by selling the body parts. Still, she said, the three questions he asked in his email demonstrated the broker’s focus on completing the sale, rather than on seeking more details about the buyer’s intentions.

That process can include a request by the seller for details about how the buyer intends to use the body parts for research or education.

McArthur said brokers like Byrd who accept donations have an ethical responsibility – though not a legal one – to ensure that body parts will be used in a medical setting for an appropriate purpose. Reuters turned over the remains to McArthur for analysis and safekeeping. But another buyer could have done anything with the human spine and heads, she said.

The spine arrives

REUTERS/Craig Lassig

On September 27, 2016, a FedEx driver delivered a brown cardboard box to the Minneapolis location where Reuters had leased a mailing address. There, Grow received the package and gave it to a courier who specializes in transporting human remains. The courier drove it directly to McArthur at the medical school.

McArthur immediately noticed problems. She said she found it odd that the outside of the box was not labeled with a customary warning that human remains were inside. McArthur found a pair of one-page documents in the box. One contained the results of a serology test by a reputable company, certifying that the donor was free of infectious disease.

The other page offered a handwritten summary, in layman’s terms, of the donor’s medical history.

"In my experience, I would have expected to see a more robust form," McArthur said, explaining that most brokers provide precise and detailed medical histories. "It’s very superficial."

The medical summary contained neither letterhead nor contact phone number, she noted. McArthur also cited inconsistencies in the specimen identification numbers listed at the top and bottom of one of the pages. And she noticed a small discrepancy between the identification numbers listed on the paperwork and a tag attached to a plastic bag covering the spine.

Precise, legible medical history and consistent donor identification systems are critical information for proper medical research, said University of California anatomical services director Brandi Schmitt. The medical history helps the researcher account for variables such as disease or trauma. Clear paperwork and accurate tagging, she said, allow researchers to track specimens in a scientific manner.

To prevent mishaps that could lead to lost or misidentified body parts, Schmitt said, most hospitals and medical schools use modern tracking techniques, including computer-generated metal discs or barcode tags. A label of some sort should have been directly attached to the spine itself, she said, not merely to the packaging.

"Misidentification is a real problem, for sure," said Schmitt, who coordinates body donation for the University of California’s medical schools statewide. "I don’t think that a handwritten document is your most professional approach. It can lead to human error."

A week after the spine arrived, Byrd responded to a follow-up email from Grow. Byrd said human heads were available for $300 each. He also offered discounts on knee and foot specimens to free up "some freezer space." He wrote that his low prices for body parts reflect the company’s "nonprofit public charity" status, adding: "We are looking to just cover our overhead."

Grief and ashes

REUTERS/Wade Payne

Richard and Angie Saunders said they wanted to bury Cody beside relatives in a nearby cemetery. But Richard, who struggles to read, earns only about $900 a month. Angie, who has long suffered from debilitating anxiety, cannot work or drive. A burial was simply too expensive.

Friends offered to pay for cremation, which typically costs at least $695 in the region. But the Saunders said they felt uneasy about accepting charity from folks they know. So they donated Cody’s body to Restore Life. At the time, Richard said he was grateful for the free cremation the firm promised.

The hardship the family faced is not uncommon among donors, said Martha Thayer, chair of the mortuary science program at Arapahoe Community College in Colorado.

Bereaved families are "vulnerable and are being put in the position of choosing this as an option when they don’t have money," Thayer said. "The only thing that’s more sad than a person who can’t afford to live is a person who can’t afford to die."

In Cody’s case, a relative read a donor consent form aloud to his parents before they signed it.

One paragraph says: "I authorize Restore Life USA to obtain all necessary tissue and organs for research and educational purposes. I understand this gift will be used for scientific research, teaching or other conforming purposes and for use in multiple research or educational venues with for profit and/or non-profit organizations that Restore Life USA, in their sole discretion, deems necessary to facilitate the gift."

The Saunders said they believed this meant that Restore Life would merely remove small skin samples from Cody for medical research, cremate him and then return his ashes. The Restore Life consent form for Cody didn’t disclose that a donated body may be dismembered, as consent forms of most other brokers do.

A few weeks after the donation, a man from Restore Life delivered an urn with Cody’s ashes. Angie can’t recall the man’s name but said he was kind.

"Really nice and understanding," she said.

The toll Cody’s death has taken on Richard worries Angie. He won’t eat more than a few bites of whatever she cooks and usually refuses to talk about their loss. Richard said Angie isn’t wrong, but he noted he has reduced his smoking, from five packs a day to about three.

On the rusted red-and-white pickup he used to ride in with his son, Richard placed a large sticker on the rear window: "In Loving Memory of Cody Saunders."

"He was my buddy. He was my best friend," Richard said. "I keep telling myself I’ll get over it, I’ll get over it."

In a shoebox inside her motorhome, Angie Saunders keeps four photographs of Cody. In each one, he looks directly into the camera, shades perched over his ballcap. She also keeps a silver urn containing his ashes on the dashboard.

"I didn’t get to hold Cody when he came into the world and I didn’t get to hold him when he went out," she said. "But he came back to me, so he’s in here with me."

Two more specimens

In January, Restore Life shipped a second package to Reuters at the same Minneapolis address. This one contained two human heads: one male, one female. As an upcoming story will detail, Reuters purchased the heads as part of its research into a case in Pennsylvania. There, a human head was found in a wooded area near Pittsburgh almost three years ago.

Again, the specialist courier brought the box to McArthur’s university lab, where she donned protective gear and opened it.

The Styrofoam container inside the cardboard box arrived cracked along two of the outside edges, making it vulnerable to leaks and presenting a potential health risk to anyone handling it, from shippers to researchers, McArthur said.

She also found problems with the paperwork for the male head.

"The area where tissue samples are usually listed – usually with client, sample description, sample ID, type of preservation, and the date and time of preservation – is all blank," she said.

Likewise, the paperwork for the female head was unprofessionally prepared, she said. McArthur said the documents were so hard to read that she struggled to understand key information any researcher would require, including the person’s medical history.

After the wrapping and paperwork were removed, McArthur found that neither head had an identification tag. A tag is considered critical, McArthur said, to track identity, especially when working with multiple body parts.

McArthur said that she was familiar with stories of casual sales of body parts by brokers, but the sloppiness of this shipment surprised her.

"I don’t believe what I have just seen here should be allowed or should be legal," McArthur said. "I know that it can be handled in a way that won’t stifle medical education and research. We can do this the right way."

A son's fate

REUTERS/Wade Payne

As is customary in the body broker industry, Restore Life did not include the names of the people who donated the body parts it sold to reporter Grow – just each person’s age and date of death.

Reuters could not identify the individuals whose heads were shipped. But at just 24, Cody Saunders died so young that the news agency was able to identify him after searching through obituaries in southern states.

With his parents’ permission and participation, Reuters hired a forensic lab to perform a DNA test. It confirmed that the cervical spine came from Cody.

In late August, Grow returned to visit Richard and Angie Saunders to tell them what Reuters had learned: Restore Life had dissected their son’s body and sold part of his spine.

For a few moments, Cody’s parents sat silently.

Angie stared into the distance. Richard looked at the ground.

Then Angie spoke. "I thought they was just taking skin samples," she said and began to cry.

Richard tried to comfort her. "It’s over with, honey."

"I didn’t want no more surgeries," she said.

"At that time, we did not have no choice," Richard reminded her. "But you have to look at it this way: Like you kept saying, if it’s going to help somebody else…"

"I know, I know."

The couple said nothing more for nearly half a minute. Finally, Richard turned to Angie. This part of their lives was "done and over," he told her.

Had they known Cody would be dissected, his parents said, they would not have donated his body. Cody, they felt, already had endured too many surgeries during his short life. They didn’t want, or expect, anyone to "cut on him" in death, Richard said.

And yet, he added, "I couldn’t afford to do nothing else, so I felt like that was the best option we had."

Richard asked whether Restore Life used any other parts of Cody’s body. The reporter said he didn’t know. Brokers typically don’t disclose that information. Richard said he doubted he would seek answers from Restore Life. "I don’t blame them," he said. But he appreciated learning what happened to Cody’s remains.

"Because we would have never known," he said.

Angie agreed. "We wouldn’t have had a clue."

Early this month, in keeping with the family’s wishes and at Reuters’ expense, Cody’s spine was cremated in Minnesota. Grow delivered the ashes to the Saunders family at their home in Tennessee.

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[newstfionline]

Trapped between Israel and Hamas, Gaza’s wasted generation is going nowhere

By William Booth and Hazem Balousha, Washington Post, August 6, 2017

They are the Hamas generation, raised under the firm hand of an Islamist militant movement. They are the survivors of three wars with Israel and a siege who find themselves as young adults going absolutely nowhere.

In many circles in Gaza, it is hard to find anyone in their 20s with real employment, with a monthly salary.

They call themselves a wasted generation.

Ten years after Hamas seized control of Gaza, the economy in the seaside strip of 2 million has been strangled by incompetence, war and blockade.

Gaza today lives off its wits and the recycled scraps donated by foreign governments. Seven in 10 people rely on humanitarian aid.

Young people say they are bored out of their minds.

They worry that too many of their friends are gobbling drugs, not drugs to experience ecstasy but pills used to tranquilize animals, smuggled across Sinai. They dose on Tramadol and smoke hashish. They numb.

Hamas has recently stepped up executions of drug traffickers.

Freedoms to express oneself are circumscribed. But the young people speak, a little bit. They say their leaders have failed them--and that the Israelis and Egyptians are crushing them.

Why not revolt? They laugh. It is very hard to vote the current government out--there are no elections.

“To be honest with you, we do nothing,” said Bilal Abusalah, 24, who trained to be a nurse but sometimes sells women’s clothing.

He has cool jeans, a Facebook page, a mobile phone and no money.

He and his friends get by with odd jobs, a few hours here and there. They worked at cafes during the busy evenings of Ramadan in June. They will help an uncle in his shoe shop as the school year approaches in August. They make $10 a day at these kinds of jobs, a few coins for coffee and cigarettes.

“We are the generation that waits,” Abusalah said.

Reporters asked a 25-year-old college graduate, who got his degree in public relations, what he did for a living.

He answered, “I stare into space.”

Raw sewage washes onto the beaches. The water looks blue at the horizon, where Israeli gunboats lurk, enforcing a six-mile blockade. But the surf line is a foamy brown.

The rappers of Gaza see this as a metaphor. They are literally trapped in their own excrement.

Most young people in Gaza have not been out, either through Israel, which is almost impossible, or through the Rafah crossing into Egypt, which has been mostly closed for the past four years.

Electricity service is down to four hours a day. The young activists in the refugee camps who dared in January to protest power cuts? They were hustled off to jail.

In the dusty gray cement-colored world of Gaza, now sputtering along on Chinese solar panels and Egyptian diesel, young people spend their days, day after day, playing with their phones, their worlds reduced to palm-size screens, to YouTube videos and endless chat.

Unemployment for Gaza’s young adults hovers around 60 percent. This is not just a dull World Bank number. This is a stunning number, the highest in the Middle East and among the worst rates in the world.

Think-tank scholars warn that Egypt’s youth unemployment rate of 30 percent is “a ticking time bomb.” In Gaza, the jobless rate for young people is double that.

The Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says what happens in Gaza is all the fault of Hamas, a terrorist organization. Hamas leaders traditionally blame the Israeli blockade for their problems. Gaza is allowed no seaport, no airport and limited exports, mostly fruits and vegetables, alongside some furniture and textiles. Lately the pressure on the strip has only gotten worse, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently slashed payments for Gaza’s electricity, to squeeze people to reject Hamas.

Gaza’s young people describe their lives as a kind of sick experiment.

The literacy rate in Gaza is 96.8 percent, higher than in the West Bank. The “Palestinian engineer” was once the gold standard in the Middle East. In the past, immigration was the door to life. That door has slammed shut. Few get out of Gaza these days.

Yet the universities of Gaza are still pumping out graduates by the thousands, even though the least likely person to find work in Gaza today is a college graduate, especially a woman.

The most recent surveys reveal that half of the Gaza population would leave the enclave if given the chance.

“I don’t believe it,” said Mohammad Humaed, 24, who studied cinema at a university but works a couple of nights a week at a coffee shop in a refugee camp. “All the young people would leave.”

Economists use the term ”de-development” to describe what is happening.

Young people in Gaza have a joke to say the same thing.

They say their unemployed friends “are driving the mattress,” meaning they spend their daylight hours sprawled in bed.

Two years ago, the United Nations warned that Gaza could become “unlivable” by 2020. U.N. officials recently said they had been overly optimistic: The place could collapse next year.

This is the generation that grew up immersed in the rhetoric of the Hamas version of the Palestinian resistance, a moralistic message of piety and opposition to Israel hammered home in Hamas-controlled mosques and military-style summer camps for children and teens, who were taught first aid and how to throw a grenade.

But in many interviews, in their torn-just-so jeans and fresh white sneakers, Gaza’s young people today say they would rather fight for a job in Tel Aviv than fight Israelis.

“If the borders were open, I’d work in Israel in a minute. I got absolutely no problem with that. Everybody would work in Israel,” said Iyad Abu Heweila, 24, who graduated with a degree in English education two years ago but now spends his days hanging out.

“I have no achievements,” he said.

Heweila asked if he could make a confession.

“I know it’s bad, but sometimes I wonder, if there’s another war with Israel, maybe there would be work for translators?” Heweila asked.

“That is sick, I know. I tell you this to show how desperate we feel,” he said. “I want a job. I want money. I want to start my life.”

This summer the nights are inky dark, now that power service has been reduced to three or four hours a day.

Every evening a group of friends gather on a rooftop. They sit on cheap plastic chairs or pieces of cement block. It is cooler up there. The night sea breeze rattles the fronds of date palms, and you can hear some Hamas official on a radio program playing in a nearby apartment. Nobody on the roof pays any attention.

Asked what he did that day, Ahmed Abu Duhair, 25, said he slept until late afternoon.

He lives for the night. “Just talking, laughing, smoking on the roof to make us a little bit happy before we die,” Duhair said.

“We are closer than brothers,” he explained, as they passed the water pipe around and took deep huffs of apple-spiced tobacco. “We’re not lazy guys. We’ve been working since we were kids.”

They began to tell stories about their first jobs, selling cigarette lighters in traffic, helping vendors at the market. Asked how old they were then, they answered they were 8 or 9 or 10.

They were envious of their friend Tamer al-Bana, 23, the only one among them who was married. Bana has two young children and a third on the way. He had to borrow $7,000 from a relative to wed, a debt that would take him years to pay off.

If the young men on the roof are desperate, so too are college graduates. Mona Abu Shawareb, 24, graduated with a degree in psychology a year ago but hasn’t gotten her diploma yet because she owes the university money.

Shawareb tries hard to keep busy. She takes free English classes at a Turkish charity; she volunteers at an organization that works with street youth; she did an internship with the U.N. refugee agency and learned Microsoft Word and Excel.

But like many unemployed young people here, she lives on the Internet, feeding friends and followers a stream of updates on Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Snapchat.

Like most women in Gaza, Shawareb dresses conservatively when she leaves the house. But she confessed that when she looks at the Internet and sees women in the West running in athletic clothes, “I feel envious,” she said. “I want to jog.”

Mohammad al-Rayyas, 25, said his heart aches for Cairo, where he received a degree in accounting. In the two years he’s been back home in Gaza, his life has stalled.

“It is more than boring,” he said, struggling to find the words. “It is very slow. The time. It seems different here.”

He has tried to find work in his field--at businesses, banks, international aid agencies. No luck. “No wasta. You know what wasta is?”

It is an Arabic word that, loosely translated, means connections or clout, and it often underscores a system plagued by corruption or nepotism.

Rayyas is unique among his contemporaries. He’s traveled, he’s gotten a taste, he’s lived abroad.

It is a cliche to call Gaza an open-air prison, but to many people it feels not only as if there is no way out, but also that the walls are closing in.

Gaza is just 24 miles long on the coastline--less than the length of a marathon. At its narrowest it is just four miles, an hour’s walk.

The enclave is surrounded by Israeli perimeter fence, bristling with cameras, watch towers and remote-controlled machine guns. On the Egyptian border, once honey­combed with Hamas smuggling tunnels, there is now a broad buffer zone, scraped clean by bulldozers, as forbidding as a no man’s land.

And the sea? Gaza fishermen are blocked by Israeli gunboats and forbidden to venture beyond six miles. For young people, the sea that once brought relief is now so polluted by untreated human waste that the Health Ministry has warned bathers to stay away.

[legacyofhopefdn]

An Honor and a Partnership: The First Lady’s Visit

Tuesday, July 25, 2017 12:30 PM CST

The day had almost arrived.  We’d spent months planning for this, and even longer debating whether it was something we should even do in the first place.  But 4 home makeovers, a couple new bank accounts, 2 extra employees and countless hours of legal document revisions later, we were finally ready.

Following the inevitable 11th hour flurry of activity, which included small repairs, painting, expanding activity space and reorganization of supplies, the first wave of DINAF (Honduras child services) employees came from the capital city to tour our facilities.  One worker noted the difference in the children who are cared for here.  “In most places the children run to me and hug my leg.  They beg me to take them with me.  But here the children are happy, content and attached to their caregivers.  They know that they are safe.  It is a beautiful thing.”  The next day was going to be specifically about our short term crisis care program, but noting the difference that family-style long-term care makes was no small victory.  It’s something we’ve been tactfully, yet consistently, trying educating DINAF about since we took in our first child almost 4 years ago.

6:30 PM CST

Shortly after nightfall (yes, one downside to living near the equator is early summer sunsets), a caravan of the First Lady’s secret service entered the neighborhood.  Other than their signature white Toyota Prado SUVs, they were fairly nondescript; which made Matt and Tyler feel a little less out of place as they scrambled in paint-spattered clothing to wrap up a last minute project.  The security team began touring the buildings the First Lady would visit and marked strategic locations for positioning team members the next day.  They also commandeered a bathroom in our school building, which would be exclusively for the First Lady’s use as needed… they think of everything. Wednesday, July 26

7:30 AM CST

A steady stream of trucks began arriving with the tents, chairs and tables for the event, as well as another pickup full of donated clothing, supplies and food.  While clearly a big reason for the day was to generate good PR for a government that often struggles to gain the trust of its constituents, they really went above and beyond in ways we had not witnessed before.

9:30 AM CST

The real fun began as the military arrived with canine teams to sweep the area and all the rooms in each of our ministry buildings. Honduras is a small country of only about 8 million people and significantly fewer resources than the United States, so it wasn’t quite the same spectacle as say Melanie Trump coming to visit, but they took it quite seriously.  Many neighbors attempted to peak past the fenced off areas to catch a better glimpse of all the hubbub as military and secret service personnel stood by with guest lists like bouncers at a VIP night club.  I’m sure they chuckled watching the intermittent parade of staff and children moving from one house to the next as we were asked to vacate each building so the dogs and their handlers could do their job without interference.

2:30 PM CST

This was the moment that all the preparation, practice and pressure had been leading up to.  Technically, it was leading up to about an hour and half prior, but late starts are pretty fashionable here.  We had about 3 minutes notice as we saw the First Lady’s entourage following their police escort down the main highway leading to the subdivision where we live and work.  Upon her arrival, the festivities kicked off immediately.  It was a well organized event comprised mainly of speeches: the First Lady, National Director of DINAF, the mayor of Santa Rosa, the director of another nonprofit in town and myself.  We were also treated to a couple of traditional Honduran dances from one of the local public schools, and our preschool girls were invited to perform their recital routine they learned in their ballet class earlier in the year.

All of this was to celebrate a very simple action that took no more than a minute or 2… On Wednesday, July 26 Legacy of Hope officially signed a contract with DINAF to continue providing emergency short-term care for children ages 0-18 who are experiencing a crisis.  Since opening our “Centro de Paso” over 18 months ago, Legacy of Hope has provided care for over 220 abused, neglected, abandoned and vulnerable children and adolescents.   The First Lady’s attendance at the event and participation in the signing as the Witness of Honor made what had been well-honed, yet unofficial, program now an official partnership.  This contract was the culmination of months of planning and hard work and we pray that God will continue to use Legacy of Hope to plant seeds of hope in every child we serve.

Our work here is so much more than providing a safe place to stay and sleep.  It is our mission to help children begin to heal from their trauma and loss.  Our integrated programs are aimed at addressing not only the immediate physical needs of the children we serve, but also their educational, emotional, social and spiritual needs.

This work is often heartbreaking, but it is also one of our greatest blessings, as we see children begin to heal from their loss and trauma and achieve their right to a safe and loving family. They leave our care knowing that they are a valuable prince or a princess of God, that their hearts have begun to be filled with hope, and that they are taking steps to be a victor over their circumstances instead of a victim.

We are committed to continual implementing of the best research-based practices and to be a voice for vulnerable and abandoned children.  Everyday we strive to improve our ability to meet the diverse needs of children and adolescents who have experienced great loss and trauma until every child is a valuable member of a safe and loving family.

We are thankful for our successful partnership with the DINAF office in this region and look forward to expanding this program to respond to the needs of children and adolescents in crisis.  We thank God for His favor.  With God before us, we will continue to pursue justice and mercy and declare Psalm 82:3-4, “Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

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