Mass burials are being considered by the Home Office as part of preparations for a possible avian flu pandemic.
A "prudent worst case" assessment suggested 320,000 people could die in Britain if the H5N1 virus mutated into a form contagious to humans, according to a confidential report seen by the Sunday Times.
That would lead to delays of up to 17 weeks in burying or cremating victims, the document - said to have been discussed by a cabinet committee - says.
It warns that the prospect of "common burial" would stir up images of the mass pits used to bury victims of the Great Plague in 1665.
But in fact it "might involve a large number of coffins buried in the same place at the same time, in such a way that allowed for individual graves to be marked".
Town halls - the report suggests - could deal with what it terms a "base case" of 48,000 deaths in England and Wales in a 15-week pandemic.
But it adds: "Even with ramping local management capacity by 100%, the prudent worst case of 320,000 excess deaths is projected to lead to a delay of some 17 weeks from death to burial or cremation."
Should the outbreak kill 2.5% of those who contract the flu, it warns, "no matter what emergency arrangements are put in place there are likely to be substantially more deaths than can be managed within current timescales".
Bird flu has already forced the slaughter of millions of birds across three continents since the deadly H5N1 strain emerged three years ago.
More than 100 humans have also been killed by it - all people who had been in close contact with infected birds. A pandemic would only become a possibility if the strain was able to mutate into a form that could be spread between humans. I'm surprised a company like Caterpillar hasn't already made a heavy piece of equipment designed just to quickly dig and liner a lot of individual graves. There are several that are close, but they aren't fast enough.
Caterpillar Tomb Tractor. A favorite of tyrants, despots and genocidal murders!! Purchase our Corrie Model NOW!! Call today and get a free body-bagging attachment for just an additional $99,999. Supplies are limited. Don't wait, it could soon be too late.
#3
2b: Such a vehicle would be very useful in natural disasters. Individual, marked graves, lined with cheap plastic support walls are far preferable to mass graves filled with body-bagged corpses, which are the current alternative.
You might even use plastic coffins, if there is a strong possible need for exhumation.
The important thing is to bury the bodies as quickly as possible, before you get a major disease outbreak.
#4
I know you are right, Moose. I was just having some snarky word fun. But be that as it may, after the Rachel Corrie affair, with its Seattle plays and global calls to boycott Caterpillar, I don't think it wise PR move for them just because it would be portrayed as a tool for the evil Zionists.
#5
Well, I was figuring that the sucker would be so large that it would be carried by the US Navy. It would probably be too heavy to be carried by a Chinook, so it would need open roads as well as a large open area to operate.
6' is probably too deep to core, so I am guessing it would have circling hoe heads. As soon as it had dug the hole it would insert an open plastic "box" in it to keep the walls from collapsing, then dump the dirt next to the hole and inserting an ID stake before moving on.
#8
6: Oh, god yes. Unburied bodies are a nightmare in the case of certain epidemics. Otherwise, they are just really stinky and nasty and breed insects like there is no tomorrow--also a good reason to bury them quickly. They are also far more difficult to handle once decomposition starts to work, with both the body digesting itself and bacteria going to work.
If properly buried in a plastic body bag, they will be a lot more identifiable as needs be, for a lot longer.
The former German government of Gerhard Schroder guaranteed a credit of one billion euros ($1.2 billion) for the Russian gas group Gazproms Baltic pipeline project, a German daily said in its Saturday edition, Deutsche Welle reported.
A few weeks before Schroeder stepped down as German chancellor following elections in September, his coalition of Social Democrats and Greens approved the billion euro ($1.2 billion) guarantee for Gazprom, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung said.
The gas company has since named Schroder as head of its supervisory board.
The report comes after Schroder was voted in Thursday as head of the supervisory board of a consortium that plans to build the natural gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. Gazprom holds 51 percent of the consortiums shares.
While I was head of the government, I had no knowledge of such a proposition and therefore had nothing to do with it, Schroeder said in reaction to the report, which has since been confirmed by a Finance Ministry spokesperson.
The Russian gas giant said in December that it would hire Schroeder, sparking a controversy that several other reconversion bids had failed to ignite.
Schroeders critics lambasted him for accepting the position.
This affair stinks terribly, said Guido Westerwelle, head of the free market liberal opposition Free Democrat party, who has already been sued by Schroeder for previous attacks about this affair. He also said he would seek to clarify the issue with a parliamentary investigation if needed. Christian Wulff, a leader in current Chancellor Angela Merkels Christian Democratic Union and Schroeders successor as head of Lower Saxony, said the revelations were serious and required an explanation from the former chancellor.
If Schroeder has any respect for himself, he must immediately resign his post on the supervisory board of the gas consortium, said Reinhard Butikofer, a leader of the Greens party, which was in coalition with the Schroeder government. A German interministerial commission approved the credit guarantee on October 24, while Schroeder was still head of the government, but just after the parliaments budget commission was informed of the deal, the newspaper said, quoting sources close to the new Merkel government.
God, I miss True German Ally. He gave us great insights and the straight skinny on so much.
TGA - if you're lurking, please check in just to let us know you're OK.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/02/2006 14:00 Comments ||
Top||
#2
"The former German government of Gerhard Schroder guaranteed a credit of one billion euros ($1.2 billion) for the Russian gas group Gazproms Baltic pipeline project, a German daily said in its Saturday edition, Deutsche Welle reported."
"The gas company has since named Scroeder as head of its supervisory board."
Trade unions and students vowed Saturday to press ahead with strikes and demonstrations against a new youth jobs law despite a compromise plan by President Jacques Chirac to defuse the crisis. In a solemn address carried live from the Elysee palace on television and radio, Chirac said he would ratify the controversial measure but promised immediate modifications. I believe the First Employment Contract (CPE) can be an effective tool for employment, he said. But he said he had also heard the anxieties being expressed by many young people and their parents over the contract, which allows employers to fire under 26-year-olds during a two-year trial period without explanation. Chirac said he would ask Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin - who fathered the CPE - to take steps to ensure that in practice no contract can be signed that does not fully include these modifications.
Demonstrators rampaged through Paris and other cities until early Saturday to express their rejection of Chiracs move, made in an address to the nation late Friday. In the capital, protesters smashed store windows, damaged cars, threw bottles at police and attacked the offices of a member of parliament from the ruling UMP party during a march by more than 2,000 people across the city. Police said 107 people were arrested and two police officers were slightly injured.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Jacques and Dominique (who is reputedly a man) need to surrender faster.
Susan Rescorla said she was amazed at the turnout Saturday [1 Apr 2006] for the unveiling of a statue at Fort Benning honoring her late husband, Ia Drang Valley and 9/11 hero Rick Rescorla.
"I thought maybe 80 would show up," she laughed as a crowd of almost 500 begged her for autographs and asked her to pose alongside the statue, which is located directly in front of the National Infantry Museum.
#3
Echoes of COL Joshua Chamberlain, 20th Maine - "Fix bayonets......" No better place than the US Army Infantry School for such a memorial. Now "Follow Me" will have a battle buddy.
#4
Chamberlain, yes. That's mighty fine company, LR. Best of the best. Chamberlain was (and is) an amazing inspiration of the unlikeliest hero, the intelligent and courageous everyman. A true hero of the first order - Rescorla would certainly be proud and deserving.
#5
Here is a good post with many links on Rescorla.
I recommend reading it if you are unfamiliar with his life's story. He lived a truly amazing life and cannot be honored enough. It is remarkable to think that he was a hero of Ia Drang Valley, an early American battle in Vietnam, and -- as a civilian -- the 2 attacks on the WTC which were the first enemy actions on US soil in the GWoT. This should not be the only statue to honor him.
I became interested because his actions on 9/11 saved the lives of people I know.
For what it's worth, he immigrated to America as an adult. He chose to come here and fight for our country. This alone makes his story humbling to read.
A religious seminary teacher in village Kotla Raham Ali Shah (Jatoi) used an iron rod to punish a student and threw him out of the institution when he fainted. Mukhtar Ahmed, a religious seminary teacher, punished his student, Sultan Ahmed, with an iron rod and asked his students to throw him out of the seminary when he fainted. Sultans father, Wahid Bakhsh, registered a case against the teacher. However, no arrest was made. Sultan Ahmed alleged that the teacher asked them to steal woods from a sawmill but he could not do so because of the watchman. When he returned empty handed the teacher beat him with an iron rod.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
how Islamic - no wood, get the iron
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/02/2006 0:49 Comments ||
Top||
#2
DIY'ers, buy your iron rods at either Home Depot or Lowe's, 10-foot lengths of 5/8" rebar give you the most for the buck, be sure to bring a hacksaw to cut them into handy lengths in the parking lot, before you drive back to the seminary. If your hands are delicate, add foam pipe insulation for hand grips & fasten with duct tape. Disciplinarians should note that the only difference between fainting and dying is that fainters wake up eventually...
#3
caeful to use OSHA-appproved mushroom safety caps for the exposed ends - so nobody is impaled - except when the Imam orders it
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/02/2006 1:10 Comments ||
Top||
#4
(from the Bulwar-Lytton bad writing contest)
Headmaster Hughes loved the popular misconception that he was a noble reformer and liberalizer of his public school, and he knew that none of his fat-cheeked little charges would dispute the fact, being terrified to incontinence at the thought of vicious canings during his insane rages, the pleasant "thwack thwack" driving him to states of total excitement.
It is also noteworthy that the great fictional character "Flashman", by George MacDonald Fraser, was the further adventures of the villain in "Tom Brown's School Days". One of the best historical novels ever written, in the form of an autobiography of Flashman himself, the luckiest cheat, braggart, scoundrel, swine, lecher, and coward to ever win every commendation offered by the British Empire at its peak.
A European think-tank has slammed Pakistans post-earthquake policy of allowing Islamist radicals to bolster their presence in the affected areas of the North West Frontier Province and Azad Kashmir, warning that the move could ultimately pose threats to domestic and regional security.
According to an International Crisis Group policy briefing entitled Pakistan: Political Impact of the Earthquake, the fact that banned jihadi groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad are participating relief efforts either under new names or through front organisations, proves that their infrastructure remains in tact. To rebuild trust, the Pakistan government must disband the networks of these and all other banned organisations, asserted the policy briefing released on March 15 and obtained by Daily Times on Saturday.
Should jihadi groups that have been active in relief work remain as involved in reconstruction, threats to domestic and regional security will increase, the ICG warned. Although Pakistans decision to allow banned militant outfits to participate in earthquake relief efforts drew fierce criticism from the West, President Pervez Musharraf remained adamant that his government would not stop anyone from delivering relief to the victims.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
And here I thought Pakistan couldn't get any more screwed up than it already was. Silly me.
#2
Perv is raking in the bucks from both sides in this war on terror. His personal fortune must be an impressive sum by now. Where is it and what is he doing with it?
While Pak may be way down on the list of things to get around to cleaning up when we have time - I hope the biggest spanking of all is coming his way.
PESHAWAR: A man was killed and a cop suffered bullet injuries when police raided a mini-cinema as part of an anti-obscenity drive on Saturday. A police team headed by Banamari Police Station head constable Shah Jehan raided a video centre in the interior city and found a mini-cinema which was locked from inside. The police forced their way in, and two men inside opened fire. Shah Jehan was hit by two bullets, one in the head and the other in the chest. He was rushed to hospital where his condition was said to be critical. One of the accused, who was later identified as Akhtaray, alias Fouji, a resident of Karak, was killed when the police returned fire. The other accused, Mubarak Shah, a resident of Muslimabad, Peshawar, was arrested. Senior Superintendent of Police Saeed Wazir confirmed that a drive against obscenity was underway in the city. It will continue till the city is rid of the menace, he vowed.
"Goddammit! We said no titties! Go home an' read yer Koran!"
"He can't! He's dead!"
"How about him?"
"If I ain't mistaken, that's a sucking head wound."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
You get an AK + a full clip with every ticket and all of the regulars have at least one alias, of course. Titties are pretty menacing if you don't know how to handle them properly. I'm a Master Titty Wrangler. Pakis should leave it to the professionals, like me.
Local authorities dug up the grave of an Ahmadi girl in a Muslim graveyard in Chanda Singh village, Kasur, 10 days after her death and moved her body to an Ahmadi cemetery under pressure from clerics. Kasur DPO Captain (r) Mobeen Ahmed supervised the reburial on March 18, Daily Times has learnt. District police officials confirmed the report and conceded that it was done under pressure from the Majlis-e-Tahafuz-e-Khatam-e-Nabuwat and local clerics.
Nadia Hanif, 17, died of an illness on March 8. She had been running an SOS village school and used to teach kids the Quran. No one objected to her being buried here at the time, her elder brother told Daily Times. Several Muslims attended her funeral, he added, though the local imam refused to offer Namaz-e-Janaza for the girl. After the funeral, extremists started protesting against her burial in a Muslim graveyard. A local cleric also got a fatwa from Saadat Ali Qadri, who runs a seminary, stating that Ahmadis cannot be buried in a Muslim graveyard and digging up the body is permissible.
Really, these are people with very small souls. Infinitisimal. I'll bet they're so small God can't find them.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
If things keep going the way they are no one, including God, will even be able to identify the atomic vapor that'll be left of them.
AMMAN The State Security Court last week handed a reduced sentence to a 26-year-old man who was convicted of attempting to blow up the Aqaba Police Station last year. The tribunal first sentenced Mohammad Y. to five years in prison after convicting him of plotting subversive acts, but decided to immediately commute the sentence to half. The defendant has no previous criminal record and the court wants to give him a second chance in life, read the verdict, which was made available to the press on Saturday.
Read on. This is a pity verdict...
On Jan. 5, the defendant headed to the Aqaba Police Station to bail his father out, court transcripts said.
"I'm here to bail out Pop!"
"How much you got, kid?"
"Twenty bucks."
"Beat it."
Officers on duty rejected his request and he threatened to blow up the police station if his father was not released.
"Youse better let Pop go, or I'll blow this joint to kingdom come!"
The defendant left the police station and headed to a gas cylinder store, where he threatened the owner with a paper cutter and took a gas cylinder and returned with it to the police station, court transcripts said.
"Gimme a gas cylinder or I'll... ummm... give you a paper cut!"
"Take it and go!"
Mohammad climbed over a two-metre wall and entered the officers'' living quarters, where he placed the cylinder, set it on fire and fled, the court added.
"Ha ha! Yer toast, coppers!"
A police officer, who woke up to perform the evening prayers, saw the burning cylinder and managed to extinguish it before it exploded, according to the charge sheet.
"Zzzzzz... What? What?... Oh. Time to bonk my forehead on the ground already?... Hey! What's that? Holy shit! I mean, Allahu Akbar! Gimme the hose, quick!"
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Fearing new temblors, survivors of three strong earthquakes spent a cold night outdoors as officials wrapped up rescue operations after pulling out 70 bodies from under the rubble and rescuing 1,200 others. "Rescue operations are over. The death toll will not increase nor will the figure for the injured," provincial governor, Mohammad Reza Mohseni, told state-run television Saturday. But Mohseni said relief workers have begun clearing the debris and providing survivors with temporary accommodation.
Iranian officials have not publicly responded to US President George W. Bush's Friday offer of assistance, but Mohseni's comments suggest that Iran feels it was able to cope with the late Thursday and Friday quakes without foreign help. The US offer was made despite more than 25 years of Iranian animosity towards America and the ongoing dispute over Iran's nuclear programme. Washington says Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge. The two countries have no diplomatic relations, but the US military provided aid to the residents of Bam after the Silk Road south Iranian city was devastated by an earthquake in 2003 that killed 26,000.
"Almost all the people spent the night outdoors fearing new quakes," Doroud resident Mahmoud Chaharmiri said Saturday. "It was a cold night but we slept without fear of being buried under the rubble," he told the Associated Press by telephone. "Local officials are saying new quakes are not ruled out. That's why people slept outdoors," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Iran feels it was able to cope with the late Thursday and Friday quakes without foreign help.
An attitude they likely picked up from their northern neighbour.
#6
I had a good laugh courtesy of my local paper yesterday.
Two stories on page 3, section A (everything else on the page was ads) - one with a headline about this latest earthquake, the other directly below it with a headline about Iran test-firing their latest rocket.
Coincidence? Or a message from the layout editor?
I report, you decide. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/02/2006 14:04 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Trade unions and students vowed Saturday to press ahead with strikes and demonstrations against a new youth jobs law despite a compromise plan by President Jacques Chirac to defuse the crisis. In a solemn address carried live from the Elysee palace on television and radio, Chirac said he would ratify the controversial measure but promised immediate modifications. I believe the First Employment Contract (CPE) can be an effective tool for employment, he said. But he said he had also heard the anxieties being expressed by many young people and their parents over the contract, which allows employers to fire under 26-year-olds during a two-year trial period without explanation. Chirac said he would ask Prime Minister 
A religious seminary teacher in village Kotla Raham Ali Shah (Jatoi) used an iron rod to punish a student and threw him out of the institution when he fainted. Mukhtar Ahmed, a religious seminary teacher, punished his student, Sultan Ahmed, with an iron rod and asked his students to throw him out of the seminary when he fainted. Sultans father, Wahid Bakhsh, registered a case against the teacher. However, no arrest was made. Sultan Ahmed alleged that the teacher asked them to steal woods from a sawmill but he could not do so because of the watchman. When he returned empty handed the teacher beat him with an iron rod.
A European think-tank has slammed Pakistans post-earthquake policy of allowing Islamist radicals to bolster their presence in the affected areas of the North West Frontier Province and Azad Kashmir, warning that the move could ultimately pose threats to domestic and regional security. 
PESHAWAR: A man was killed and a cop suffered bullet injuries when police raided a mini-cinema as part of an anti-obscenity drive on Saturday. A police team headed by Banamari Police Station head constable Shah Jehan raided a video centre in the interior city and found a mini-cinema which was locked from inside. The police forced their way in, and two men inside opened fire. Shah Jehan was hit by two bullets, one in the head and the other in the chest. He was rushed to hospital where his condition was said to be critical. One of the accused, who was later identified as Akhtaray, alias Fouji, a resident of Karak, was killed when the police returned fire. The other accused, Mubarak Shah, a resident of Muslimabad, Peshawar, was arrested. Senior Superintendent of Police Saeed Wazir confirmed that a drive against obscenity was underway in the city. It will continue till the city is rid of the menace, he vowed. 
Local authorities dug up the grave of an Ahmadi girl in a Muslim graveyard in Chanda Singh village, Kasur, 10 days after her death and moved her body to an Ahmadi cemetery under pressure from clerics. Kasur DPO Captain (r) Mobeen Ahmed supervised the reburial on March 18, Daily Times has learnt. District police officials confirmed the report and conceded that it was done under pressure from the 
AMMAN The State Security Court last week handed a reduced sentence to a 26-year-old man who was convicted of attempting to blow up the Aqaba Police Station last year. The tribunal first sentenced Mohammad Y. to five years in prison after convicting him of plotting subversive acts, but decided to immediately commute the sentence to half. The defendant has no previous criminal record and the court wants to give him a second chance in life, read the verdict, which was made available to the press on Saturday. 
Fearing new temblors, survivors of three strong earthquakes spent a cold night outdoors as officials wrapped up rescue operations after pulling out 70 bodies from under the rubble and rescuing 1,200 others. "Rescue operations are over. The death toll will not increase nor will the figure for the injured," provincial governor, Mohammad Reza Mohseni, told state-run television Saturday. But Mohseni said relief workers have begun clearing the debris and providing survivors with temporary accommodation. 
