Rives controls the Internet

(Thanx Tim!)

Iran 27 Dec 09 Protest Police Car running over people!

Disinfectants 'train' superbugs to resist antibiotics

Disinfectants could effectively train bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics, research suggests.

Scientists know bacteria can become inured to disinfectant, but research increasingly shows the same process may make them resistant to certain drugs.
This can occur even with an antibiotic the bacteria have not been exposed to.
Writing in Microbiology, the National University of Ireland team, who focused on a common hospital bacterium, urges a rethink of how infections are managed.
Scientists in Galway found that by adding increasing amounts of disinfectant to cultures of pseudomonas aeruginosa in the lab, the bacteria learnt to resist not only the disinfectant but also ciprofloxacin - a commonly-prescribed antibiotic - even without being exposed to it.
The researchers report the bacteria had adapted to pump out anti-microbial agents - be they a disinfectant or an antibiotic - from their cells.
The adapted bacteria also had a mutation in their DNA that allowed them to resist ciprofloxacin-type antibiotics specifically.

Residue from incorrectly diluted disinfectants left on hospital surfaces could promote the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria Dr Gerard Fleming

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a bacterium most likely to infect those who are already seriously ill.
It can cause a wide range of infections, particularly among those with weak immune systems such as HIV or cancer patients, as well as people with severe burns, diabetes or cystic fibrosis.
Surface disinfectants are used to prevent its spread - but if the bacteria manage to survive and go on to infect patients, antibiotics are used to treat them.
Bacteria that could resist both these control points could be a serious threat to hospital patients, the study said.
At the high concentration levels generally employed this was unlikely to be a problem - but "in principle this means that residue from incorrectly diluted disinfectants left on hospital surfaces could promote the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria", said study author Dr Gerard Fleming.
"What is more worrying is that bacteria seem to be able to adapt to resist antibiotics without even being exposed to them."

Disinfectants may not just be the problem, they may also be the cure Dr Gerry McDonnell

There is an increasing body of research that raises concerns about the effects on antibiotic resistance of disinfectants and antiseptics.
An EU report published earlier this year stressed the importance of the "appropriate and prudent" use of disinfectants to minimise the risk that bacteria become resistant to both forms of defence.
It also emerged this year that treatments in hospitals in Brazil had been compromised by a bacterium, mycobacterium massiliense, which had developed resistance to a common sterilisation fluid and a number of antibiotics used to treat the subsequent infections.
"This was very significant because it was really the first incident related to resistance to a biocide which led to clinical failure, which is new," said Dr Gerry McDonnell, a researcher in the field.
"This really needs to be an area of active investigation and debate. But it's worth bearing in mind that disinfectants may not just be the problem, they may also be the cure."
Research was published this year showing that the disinfecting wipes used to protect against MRSA could in fact spread the bug, as the solution contained was often not sufficient to kill all the bacteria picked up, and hospital staff often used the same wipe to clean more than one surface.

@'BBC'

(Thanx Robin who also says: "It takes PC to an extreme even for the BBC. I think it is a wonder to read and amazing how you can get around using the word “Evolve” or anything close to it.")

Iran: A summary

(Thanx Rosa!)

AAAAAAAAGH! (updated 7:55AM: SSSSSSSSSSSSH!)

AAAAAAGH!

(7:56AM I just knew that this image that CTel posted the other day @'Acid Ted' would come in very handy sometime...I also knew when I originally posted this that I was not going to be feeling at all well when I woke up today!)

Dick Cheney - Patron of the Arts

How many times have we seen Dick Cheney's mug plastered across our TV screens over the past 12 months, spewing garbage about the Obama administration putting the lives of the American people at risk?

Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.
American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.

Somehow this brings to mind what Cheney had to say just weeks after President Obama took office:

When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry.

So, how's that protecting America one still life painting class at a time working out, eh, Dick?

Of course the question now is, will Cheney again be booked on every
Fox News to peddle more criticism of President Obama, or will this little "oops" moment mean that Dick is slithering back to his undisclosed location?

@'Daily Kos'

Mahmood Delkhasteh: The 21st Century's First Authentic Revolution

In 1979 Iranians introduced a new form of social revolution. In place of the guerrilla-style armed struggle that had characterized the twentieth-century revolutions in non-western countries, the Iranians modeled a spontaneous nonviolent mass movement. And much to the experts' surprise, in less than 2 years this movement overthrew a dictatorial monarchy that had the backing of both Western powers and the strongest army in the Middle East. The principles of freedom and independence that sustained this revolution were soon violated by Khomeini, who instituted an even more repressive and brutal regime than that which had been dismantled. But the methods of the early victory set a new precedent, shaping the imagination of what was possible in the Eastern European revolutions of the 1980s.

Now, after thirty years, this revolution has boomeranged back to the streets and rooftops of Iran. A new generation is determined to finish the job that their parents began but could not bring to fruition: the establishment of freedom and democracy in an independent Iran.

The violent confrontations at yesterday's Ashura demonstrations, which resulted from widespread resistance to the brutality of the regime's various security forces, have shifted the balance of the struggle towards the people. The question is no longer whether this corrupt regime will be overthrown, but rather when it will go, and how. It is clear that this struggle, which began as a simple protest against the rigged presidential election, can no longer be defined as a movement for either state reform or civil rights. Yesterday's demonstrations, occurring throughout the country and from Tehran to the smallest towns, cannot be defined by any term other than revolution.

Dictatorships always maintain a fragile balance between fear and anger, which they either inflict on or produce for the people they rule. As long as the fear of the regime's power outweighs anger at its effects, its position is relatively secure. But if this balance tips with changes in conditions either at home or abroad, and if feelings of anger begin to supersede those of fear, then given opportunity and circumstances it is safe to assume that a regime's days are numbered. Yesterday, in defiant resistance against thousands of security forces and carrying with them in demonstrations the experiences of more than a century of struggle for democracy, Iranians demonstrated to themselves and to the world that this is truer than ever of the Iranian regime. The balance has tipped from fear to anger, and there is a new determination to make Iran free and independent.

The consequences of this revolution cannot be underestimated. Many argue that it was 1979 Iranian revolution which transformed Islamic fundamentalism into a global phenomenon. If this is correct, then it is possible that the present revolution might to do the 'unthinkable' and overthrow a corrupt, fundamentalist regime. Such a non-violent revolution could secularise the state, separating it from religion, and revolutionise religion itself by redefining Islam as a discourse of freedom and a method not for obtaining and managing power, but for expanding freedom. The principles of such an Islam are already being produced, not least of all in the latest works of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, who during the course of his life became an advocate of human rights. His unprecedented burial gathering, despite being disrupted by the regime's great attempts to minimise it, suggest that the Iranian public recognises and perhaps even favours this discourse. An authentic Islamic renaissance is already sweeping through many Iranian cities, and its effect on other Islamic countries will be felt in the coming years and months.

@'HuffPo'

Obama on Iran: "History will be on the side of those who seek justice."

"Before I leave, let me also briefly address the events that have taken place over the last few days in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States joins with the international community in strongly condemning the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens, which has apparently resulted in detentions, injuries, and even death.

For months, the Iranian people have sought nothing more than to exercise their universal rights. Each time they have done so, they have been met with the iron fist of brutality, even on solemn occasions and holy days. And each time that has happened, the world has watched with deep admiration for the courage and the conviction of the Iranian people who are part of Iran’s great and enduring civilization.

What’s taking place within Iran is not about the United States or any other country. It’s about the Iranian people and their aspirations for justice and a better life for themselves. And the decision of Iran’s leaders to govern through fear and tyranny will not succeed in making those aspirations go away.

As I said in Oslo, it’s telling when governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. Along with all free nations, the United States stands with those who seek their universal rights. We call upon the Iranian government to abide by the international obligations that it has to respect the rights of its own people.

We call for the immediate release of all who have been unjustly detained within Iran. We will continue to bear witness to the extraordinary events that are taking place there. And I’m confident that history will be on the side of those who seek justice.

Thank you very much, everybody. And Happy New Year."

What is really happening in Tehran

PHOTOGRAPHS

Those arrested in Iran

Ebrahim Yazdi (former Foreign Minister)
Emad-e’Din Baghi (Human Rights Activist)
Morteza Hadji (Minister of educaion during Khatami era)
Leila Tavassoli, daughter of Mohammad Tavassoli
Seyed Hosein Mousavi Tabrizi (Head of the clerical Association of Teachers and Researchers of Qom)
Alireza Beheshti Shirazi (Editor in Chief of Mousavi’s online journal Kalameh Sabz)
Ghorban Behzadian Nejad (Mousavi consultant)
Mohamad Bagherian (Mousavi consultant)
Rasouli (deputy of President Khatami’s Baran Foundation)
Forouzandeh (Manager of Mousavi’s office)
Mohammad Sadegh Rabbani (retired university professor who used to be the general prosecutor 20 years ago, arrested yesterday 27 December)
Mohammad Moin (son of former Presidential candidate Mostafa Moin, the former Minister of Science and higher education, arrested 27 December)
Heshmatollah Tabarzadi (Student Activist)
Haleh Sahabi (Women’s Rights activist)

Iran stands on the brink: Massoumeh Torfeh

The situation in Iran has reached the point of no return. The opposition has been calling for weeks for the downfall of the Islamic Republic and the removal from power of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His own supporters have demanded the "harshest possible punishment for the instigators of unrest". Judging by the video footage and photos distributed via the internet, despite the brutal clampdown of the last six months the opposition does not appear frightened. The demonstrators are directly confronting the police and security forces. Many police officers have been injured in the clashes of the last two days together with scores of opposition injuries and eight deaths on Sunday – Ashura – a day on which in Islamic tradition no blood is to be spilled. Some of the pictures of those killed on Sunday are as gruesome as last summer's images of Neda Agha Soltan.

Different layers of the opposition, the reformist Islamists as well as the more modern, possibly secular young activists and academics – and artists, musicians and journalists – have been enraged over the past few weeks. Students – always at the forefront of democratisation movements in Iran – were not allowed to mark their national day on 16 Azar (7 December); high-ranking reformist ayatollahs in Qom and Isfahan were not allowed to mourn the death of the highly respected Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. Several ayatollahs and leading opposition figures who have spoken out in defence of human rights, the right to demonstrations, and for a free media, have been threatened with losing their positions, and accused of "collaboration with western conspiracy". Hundreds of high-ranking opposition figures were arrested on Sunday and Monday, and many who are in detention received long prison sentences.

However, despite their unprecedented techniques of distributing information and mobilising support, the opposition still lacks a clear statement as to where it is going and what it would do were it to topple the regime. It also lacks a leader accepted by all. Activists argue that if they did have such clarity the entire machinery of the state would ensure their leadership was obliterated. And it is true that the military arm of the regime is killing and arresting at random.

It is also true that Khamenei no longer has any of his seasoned advisers – such as former presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, or the former speaker of the parliament Mehdi Karoubi. He sidelined them all when supporting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the presidential elections. Over the past six months the supreme leader has also lost crucial links with the reformist ayatollahs and clergy in the holy cities of Qom, Isfahan and Mashhad.

The leader is now surrounded by the hardline clergy, right of centre politicians, Revolutionary Guards and Basij militia, who are calling for direct confrontation. This can only lead to further bloodshed. The opposition is now calling for more strikes and attacks at important centres of power such as the state TV, where clashes took place yesterday. And February sees the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Republic. There is talk of a military coup by the Revolutionary Guards if the situation does not settle down.

Iran is facing a long period of political instability; and with increasing tensions in neighbouring Pakistan, plus the volatile situation in Afghanistan and Iraq, regional security appears more precarious than any time in the recent past.

@'The Guardian'

یک نفر = یک سخنگو

Later/

DAILY NITE OWL
DAILY DISH
ENDURING AMERICA
NIAC
THE LEDE
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
#Iranelection
(@ twitter)
ANONYMOUS IRAN
ETC
Finally a message to all the people following this blog in Iran:
Any pictures or words would be gratefully accepted here at Exile...
Monastreet @ gmail dot com
twitter/exilestreet

PHOTOGRAPHS

1205 GMT: The Human Rights Activists News Agency claims that 550 people arrested on Sunday have been transferred to Evin Prison.

Does Ashura Mark the Beginning of the End?

In one of the most turbulent days in the Islamic Republic’s thirty-year history, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s illegitimacy as president was hardly mentioned. For if Ashura comes to symbolize one thing in another thirty years from now, it may very well mark the day that open contempt for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei spread like wildfire across the country’s cities and provinces.
This shift is significant because while Iran rose up in June to contest a rigged presidential election, the presidency itself was always window-dressing for a despotic regime ruled by Khamenei. Whereas six months ago, Iran’s Supreme Leader could have forced Ahmadinejad out as a sacrificial lamb and thereby given the Islamic Republic a plausible chance of surviving its current political crisis, recent events (which undoubtedly had Khamenei’s either explicit or complicit support) have taken the 2009 Iranian uprising to a point of no return. The oxymoronic experiment of a ‘theocratic-democracy’ appears to be on the verge of failure.
Which is what makes the Green movement's adoption of Islamic themes in its confrontation with the regime so ironic. Last week’s death of Grand Ayatollah Ali Montazeri more than gave the opposition a rallying cry and fallen leader to immortalize. It also opened the eyes of many – particularly the older, conservative clerical class removed and censored from the epicenter of events in Tehran – to the vastness and legitimacy of this social movement. Since June’s unprecedented uprising, security in the city of Qom (where the majority of clerics reside) has been amongst the strictest in the entire country. This is likely because the regime has not forgotten that it was Iran’s religious heartland that came together to usher it into power a revolution ago. And so when hundreds of thousands of mourners became protesters in Qom last week, boldly chanting in unison that “Khamenei is a murderer,” there was a discernable shift in Iran’s political climate.
As if that were not enough, at least 15 protesters – including the nephew of Mir-Hossein Mousavi – were murdered yesterday during one of the most holy days of the Shia faith, which also coincided with the seventh (and religiously significant) day after Montazeri’s passing. Simply put, the brutal attacks of Ashura were an affront on the Islamic faith committed by a supposedly Islamic government. As Mehdi Karoubi put it, “Even the Shah respected Ashura.”
So when word of yesterday’s bloodshed reaches the country’s religious centers – and it surely will in the midst of the chaos that has erupted during the last forty-eight hours – outrage can be expected in Qom. This may soon put Iran’s clerics, both conservative and moderate, in an unenviable position: sacrificing their coveted theocracy in order to salvage their religion’s sanctity. For if it was unclear up until this point, there is surely no way that any clerical scholar of Islam can any longer defend the actions of the Islamic Republic – especially when such actions are committed in Islam’s name, for that matter.
But even assuming that the pillars of the Islamic Republic have been irreparably shaken and that the regime is in its last throes, the question remains how the Green movement will culminate in the weeks and months ahead. Just as Ahmadinejad’s name has been substituted with Khamenei’s in opposition chants, demands that the “coup regime resign” have similarly diminished, along with protesters’ passivity. With more and more people openly labeling Khamenei a “murderer,” it is difficult to see how any mere political solution – even one that includes Khamenei stepping down – will be palatable for the Iranian population. Protesters are no longer marching for their votes to be counted; they are marching the crimson-stained streets of Tehran in pursuit of justice and freedom.
Which begs the question: if conservatives within the regime that are not aligned with Ahmadinejad but are supportive of Khamenei (such as Ali Larijani) come to accept that the ship is sinking, do they retain any clout in affecting the future direction of the country? Given that the nephew of Iran’s former Prime Minister (under Khomeini, no less) was shot dead in streets of Tehran yesterday, it appears that the window for political compromise is closing, if not already closed. This is by no means to argue that there will be a conservative “purge” of the Iranian Majlis parliament once the dust settles, however. Rather, it points to the reality that the landscape has unalterably changed during the course of the last month. Whatever bargaining position Iran’s conservatives may have had in what form a new Iranian government takes has surely and severely been marginalized through their complicity (if not acquiesce) of the regime’s brutal actions.
This also has immediate consequences for Iran’s most mercurial cleric and politician, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Throughout the post-election crisis, and as recently as two weeks ago, Rafsanjani has been using his position as the head of both the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts (which can constitutionally oust Khamenei) to push for a “national unity plan” that would attempt to bridge Iran’s fractured political landscape. While it appears that the rumored plan (which would have kept Khamenei in power in some capacity) never received serious consideration from regime-insiders, it is now apparent that any such attempts at reconciliation will be neither accepted by the majority of Iran’s population nor entertained by an increasingly megalomaniacal inner-circle.
Moreover, this also puts Rafsanjani in the spotlight. While Mousavi, Karoubi, and former reformist President Mohammad Khatami have all come out squarely in the Green camp, Rafsanjnai, Iran’s political “shark,” has essentially strayed on both sides of the conflict. While he has gradually inched closer to the Greens, stating on the eve of 16 Azar that the clerics should govern the country for only so long as “the people of Iran want [them to],” the events of Ashura may finally draw the line in the sand that forces the senior cleric to decide where he will unequivocally stand: with the regime or with the people. If yesterday’s fatalities prove to be as damaging to the regime’s legitimacy as many are speculating, his decision should be easier now more than any other time since June’s election.
If Rafsanjani decides to take the unprecedented step of coming out against Khamenei, which is not as outlandish of a possibility as it once was prior to Karoubi’s blatant condemnation of the regime last night, it would undoubtedly be a game-changer. Simply put, it would openly signal political abandonment of the regime by the country’s second most powerful figure. If Rafsanjani remains quiet, however, questions will surely begin to be raised as to where his true allegiances lie. Consequently, as the demands of a galvanized and broadening opposition grow, he will arguably be less and less able to hedge his bets.
Rafsanjani’s public stance one way or another should not be read as the Green movement’s need for leadership, however. This was similarly misinterpreted when questions arose as to Mousavi and Karoubi’s attendance in previous demonstrations. In fact, what makes the Green movement unique from many others is that its grassroots nature allows it to thrive and grow without the need of a single individual leading the way. Current chatter of an imminent national strike being planned – an enormous development if it proves to be true – is just one example of how such a structure allows the opposition movement to organize through a decentralized communication network rather than a rigid hierarchy.
And so as Tehran faces yet another day of clashes with yesterday’s ashes still smoldering, uncertainty is in the air. Martial law was reportedly declared in Najafabad yesterday. Will the beleaguered security apparatus start to see desertions within its ranks? Will talk of an impending military mutiny against the regime come to fruition? While there are plenty of rumors floating around since yesterday’s tumultuous events, one thing that is certain is that there is no turning back. 'Th

@'The Newest Deal'