World: When residents of Sydney, Australia, turned off their lights at 7:30 p.m. for an hour last March 31, “Energy usage dropped by 10.2 per cent across the business district, more than double what organizers were aiming for, representing a reduction of 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide – the equivalent of taking 48,613 cars off the road for an hour,” The Toronto Star reports. This year as Sydney reprises its Earth Hour at 8 p.m. on March 29, it will be joined by at least 16 cities in seven countries including Toronto and Chicago. For more information on this year’s Earth Hour, visit here.
World: The Times of London reports that the FBI is being accused of denying a file exists that contains explosive evidence in the investigation of high-ranking U.S. officials selling nuclear secrets to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds had referred to the file in a story two weeks ago in the Sunday Times. Although the FBI responded to a Freedom of Information Act request on the file that it did not exist, the Times “has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file.”
Tech: The Department of Homeland Security is pursuing a Big Brother-like technology that “interprets your gestures and facial expressions, analyzes your voice and virtually probes your body to determine your temperature, heart rate, respiration rate and other physiological characteristics — all in an effort to determine whether you are trying to deceive,” Computerworld reports.
World: Agence-France Presse reports that Israel’s blockade of Gaza in retaliation for rocket fire, is preventing fuel from reaching its only power plant and has plunged Gaza City’s 600,000 resident into darkness.
Arts: A Dutch architect has the solution to housing in the age of global warming when flooding risks are rising — watervillas, the Guardian reports.
O P I N I O N
Recently a friend of mine who was suffering from a kidney stone waited hours in his hospital room writhing in pain as the nurses waited for confirmation from his doctor that painkiller could be administered. It didn’t help that it was New Year’s Eve. That said, even though he’d already been given a dose earlier, why was this man allowed to suffer for hours when the cure for his pain was just around the corner?
In the age of modern health care, common sense is tossed out the window for fear of whether a patient has proper insurance coverage or might file a malpractice suit. Something is terribly wrong when a patient in horrific pain is ignored like this. The sad thing is, I don’t think my friend’s case was an anomaly. If you went into any hospital across this land, you’d encounter similar or worse cases.
This nation could, and should, do much better. We the patients should be the ones controlling our health care system, not the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. It’s another shining example of how greed is undermining this nation.
♣ Nation/world news tally in my local paper today: 1¼ pages
Feed me 5 Under the Radar
