Radar base instead

Last Friday, after 230 days Czech Republic's parliament finally gave the vote of confidence to our "new" government. A right wing ass-climbing government. The very night USA sent an official note to ask to place their radar station in Czech Republic.

So although we managed not to have the missile base here, we are to receive even a worse thing - a radar station - as logically radar station is usually the first target to get rid of. Nice.

I wonder why France, Belgium, Netherlands or eg. Sweden was not asked. Or maybe they were and the countries refused it.

Not Czech Republic. Our new government is all for the station claiming no harm can be done to our country, we will receive on the contrary higher protection. And no referendum necessary. The population is stupid and thus they dont know what is good for us.

One of our new ministers said one very wise argument for the station "the US base of 300 men will support the economy of our country, as the men will consume food and drinks in Czech Republic". Amazing economic deduction. Finally I understand why he became one of the ministers.

This is what claims one Czech physicist.
If there is an attack on USA, be it from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or North Korea, the logical path of the missile is not over Europe but over the Pacific Ocean. The missile should logically follow the way the Earth turns, from west to east. Thus the speed of the missile and the earth's turning will accelerate the missile. If the missile chooses the other route it will have to carry much more fuel and most likely wont reach the target. The question is how clever are the physicists in those Arabic and Asian countries - hopefully bit more than those in USA. ;o)

This all makes me wonder what is the point of the missile base in Czech Republic. And I suggest our prime minister should offer his own garden to place the station. He can also feed the soldiers.

The modern Noah's Arc

Svalbard, the nothernmost islands of Norway, can be called the modern Noah's Arc. The islands that spread over 62 thousand square kilometres and have less than 3000 population were selected as the place where the international bank of registered seeds was stored. The place is 300m under the ground with stable temperature of 18°. There are over 3 million kinds of plants placed there.

In urgent need of money?

Have you appeared in a situation that you are in a desperate need for money? Are you in really huge debts and someone started to recover it?

Eastern Europeans have found a way to get money. Go insure yourself and then cause an injury to your body. Depending what part of your body you hurt, that much money you get. Of course, you have to ensure the insurance does not find out you did it yourself, in that case you get no money and the injury is useless and limiting.

Insurance companies in Eastern Europe have taken measures as they have noticed a rising number of these "injuries". So it is not as easy to do so now. Czech R. has not yet registered such cases, I guess we like our bodies more than other Eastern Europeans (including Slovakia).

How desperate do these people have to be to come up with such a sick idea?!

Recycling

My sister became freak into recycling... paper, plast, bio, glass, aluminium and the rest.
Is it usefull? Should people really recycle?

Some years ago in Czech, there was an issue that although most of us were recycling the three main materials - glass, plast and paper, we found out that all the materials are being dumped on the same heap with the rest of the rubbish anyways. Thus all our work was useless.

Now it seems we are further than before. We received new dustbins, people seem to be using them again and all three materials are being brought to three different heaps - paper, glass and plast. Yeay.

To our great dismay though, we found out that the plast from EU is being gathered and transported to China to whom we pay and China burns it.
Well done, so much for ecology. EU has clean hands, China is the bad one. But Earth is only one so who cares who burns it if it is being burnt...

I wonder which country is gonna be the first one to make some unpopular decision like Bangladesh by banning plastic bags. How far does all this have to go before the governments tell the big companies to fuck off and do some good for a change.

Doteky Severu

Pozvánka na výstavu fotografií z Norska a Islandu - Doteky Severu

Doteky Severu - je název neobvyklé výstavy fotografií z Norska a Islandu Petry Doležalové, která se bude konat v Křížové chodbě galerie Karolinum, Ovocný trh 3, Praha 1 od 17.1. do 6.2. 2007.

Stem cell transplants from women raise cancer risk

People who receive stem cell transplants for diseases such as leukaemia appear to face a higher risk of developing secondary cancers, especially if the cells come from a female donor, according to a preliminary study.

The scientists behind the new report caution that future stem cell treatments for ailments such as spinal cord injury and heart failure might also carry a cancer risk. However, experts point out that the study is far from conclusive and more work needs to be done to confirm a link between stem cell transplants and tumours. More

Bandit Queen

I went to see supposedly Bollywood movie. I was looking forward to finally see some dancing and singing in Indian style... :o))... but I was to be disappointed and shocked by a true story of Phoolan Devi...

Early life
She was born into a family of the shudra sub-caste of boatmen called mallahs in the small village of Gorha Ka Purwa, Uttar Pradesh, India. At 11 years of age she was married to a widower 20 years her elder. He already had six children.
Beaten by her husband, the high-spirited and intelligent girl defended her father in a court case over a land dispute. She won, was arrested by police on questionable charges and raped in detention.

Bandit Queen
Devi ran away to the deep jungle of her native region south of Agra and became the mistress of a bandit leader. A rival gang from the powerful land-owner caste caught them, killed her lover and dragged her to their village. She was publicly raped for days. She would never bear children. After three days she escaped, went back to the jungle and gathered a gang. A year later, 20 of her tormentors were dead.
Pursued by the law enforcement authorities, for over two years, she proved difficult to capture. The government of Indira Gahdhi and the police finally made a deal with her that she and members of her gang would not face the death penalty. As a part of this arrangement, in 1983 she surrendered on a stage before a crowd of 10,000 people.

Death
On July 25, 2001, she was shot in front of her house in New Delhi, allegedly by one Sher Singh Rana, which he claims was retribution for the Behmai massacre. The police, however, are sceptical of his claims.
She is survived by her husband, Ummed Singh.

Film
The 1994 Indian film Bandit Queen, by the director Shekhar Kapur is about her life up through her 1983 surrender. Although Devi is a heroine in the film, she fiercely disputed its accuracy and fought to get it banned in India.

Czech language...

undoubtadly belongs among the most spoken world languages :o))))...





As Cambodian King Sihamoni came to visit The Czech republic, he was speaking with our president and others in fluent Czech... he says "Babička" is his favourite Czech book to read. ;o)

After 11 days working straight, he died...

In UK, where capitalism is more "developed" than in other countries of Europe, there is a working accident of young employee every 40min due to the heavy workload they are forced into by their managers. Children, students, young graduates die mostly in summer.

The death rate of young employees in UK has raised by 20% within the last 5 years and about 4500 of young workers get seriously injured at work yearly. Each month at least 1 person under 25 years dies at his work place and thousands of others get injured in such way that they have to take at least 3 or more days off work (in 2005 the number reached 15 000 people).

In 2002, Mark Fiebig died during a car accident after he spent at work more than 20 hours that day. When he died, he worked for 11 days straight with no day off. The company where he worked forced him to work for 17 or more hours a day, having only some 3-4 hours for sleep.

The report says that within the last 11 years 46 employees younger than 18yo died while working at a farm. Out of which 10 were between 16-17yo.

Killing Lake Nyos

Lake Nyos is located in western Cameroon, adjacent to Nigeria, in the elbow region of west Africa. It lies within the Oku Volcanic Field, at the northern boundary of the Cameroon Volcanic Line, a zone of crustal weakness and volcanism that extends to the southwest through the Mt. Cameroon stratovolcano. The Oku Volcanic Field contains numerous basaltic scoria cones and maars. Lake Nyos itself occupies a maar crater which formed from a hydrovolcanic eruption 400 years ago. There are about thirty similar lakes in the region.

At 9:30 p.m. on August 12, 1986, a cloudy mixture of carbon dioxide (CO2) and water droplets rose violently from Lake Nyos, Cameroon. As the lethal mist swept down adjacent valleys, it killed over 1700 people, thousands of cattle, and many more birds and animals. Local villagers attributed the catastrophe to the wrath of a spirit woman of local folklore who inhabits the lakes and rivers. Scientists, on the other hand, were initially puzzled by the root cause, and by the abrupt onset, of this mysterious and tragic event. More

Pluto

Astrologists from all over the world have gathered in Prague with one aim, to accurately define the word "planet". The reason is that the scientific world has still not decided if Pluto, an "object" that had been discovered in 1930, is a planet or not. The conference should bring an end to these discussions. I like Pluto...

... continuation...

Demonstrace proti umístění americké raketové základny na území ČR proběhne v pondělí 21.8. 2006 od 18 hodin na Náměstí míru v Praze.

Talkin against the placement of the US rocket base on the territory of the Czech republic will be held on Monday, 21 August 2006, at 6pm at the Namesti miru square in Prague.

Why not to want to be born Polish...

One of the smaller Polish political parties that is part of the governing coalition, Ultracatholic League of Polish Families (LPR), wants to tighten up even more the already harsh abortion laws. It intends to forbid the abortion even in cases when the mother's health is in danger.

The idiocy of some never ceases to surprise me. I wonder how many women are members of that party. Brainwashed morons... Since when guys have the right to forbid abortion... they are the ones to get us into this trouble at the first place.... Forbidden abortion will only turn into higher and bigger risks for women that will have the abortion done secretaly... Grrrr, annoys me...

endless

http://2a.hasicido.cz/?dokument=fotogalerie_fotografie&groupid=233

Africa women’s day

This day is celebrated on the 31st July and is connected with the foundation of Panafrican Women Organization on the 31st July 1962 in Dar-es-Salam, "former" capital city of Tanzania.

Mummy of Tattooed Woman Discovered in Peru Pyramid

An exquisitely preserved and elaborately tattooed mummy of a young woman has been discovered deep inside a mud-brick pyramid in northern Peru, archaeologists from Peru and the U.S. announced today.
The 1,500-year-old mummy may shed new light on the mysterious Moche culture, which occupied Peru's northern coastal valleys from about A.D. 100 to 800.

In addition to the heavily tattooed body, the tomb yielded a rich array of funeral objects, from gold sewing needles and weaving tools to masterfully worked metal jewelry. Such a complete array has never been seen before in a Moche tomb. Surprisingly, the grave also contained numerous weapons, including two massive war clubs and 23 spear throwers.

...
Verano, an anthropologist at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, who is part of the research team, said the finding is the first of its kind in Peru, and he likens it to the discovery of King Tut's tomb in Egypt. More

Vedrana Rudan

Vedrana Rudan, the Croatian writer and journalist has published a book that has been hugely critisized by the critics but appreaciated by the common reader. This book, Ear, throat, knife (In USA published as Night), talks about the Serbo-croatian war and sides niether the Croatians nor the Serbs.

I read an interview with her and some of her answers quite asthonished me, some answers did not surprise me at all. I have picked few to post here. (Polish weekly NIE)

What sort of war was the one between Croatians and Serbians?
I think it was a conflict that was forced on us from outside, it was a provocation against Yugoslavia. The goal was to split the big market among France, Germany, USA and Austria.

Are we able to comprehend what was the aim of the war?
Not even we can understand what the war was about, thus how can anyone from outside understand it? Within one night all our Serbian neighbours became our biggest enemies. Yugoslavia was pronounced as something that is the worst in the world. And us, the former Yugoslavians, had to become hearty Croatians within one night. And now, when there is the peace, we should try to comprehend why have so many people died in order for 10 people in Croatia to rake together millions of dollars. That is the only thing we were left with after the war.

Can the Serbo-croatian relationships become normal? Do you think the war is slowly being forgotten?
The same politics who forced the hatred on us, are forcing us now to feel love instead, but that is not happening so easily.

In the monologue of Tonka in the book Ear, throat, knife you describe a TV interview that broadcasted a funeral of a child live. The little body lies in the white coffin and the funeral evokes huge national psychosis. At the end it came out that all of it was just a medial fiction. Is that really truth?
It is truth. This manipulation was supposed to awake hatred in Croatians towards Serbians; they tried to evoke that everyday. The media was supposed to encourage and feed the hatred.

How was the truth discovered?
One woman that was working on TV revealed the truth after the war; but no one was interested in it then any longer.

Do you remember any other examples?
The newspapers were publishing names, addresses and telephone numbers of Serbians with comments such as they are murderers, criminals, agents, traders with arms. Some of these Serbs were murdered by their neighbours, some rather ran away and the neighbours have encroached their flats. In Rieka, there were personal data published about one Serb and it claimed he is dangerous, that he is policeman and murderer. All of it was published with huge letters. Before the next publishing happened, after the person got killed, the editor's office has prepared a correction, but the text was written the way that one would need a magnifying glass to read. The newspapers explained, this person was not Serb, but Croatian and added he died as the real Croatian patriot.

What can one believe in after a war like this?
Nothing. That is why so many Croatian men that have fought with arms in their hands in this war are taking their own lives now. They understood that they spilled blood for nothing. They pour inflammables over themselves and strike a light, they hang themselves, they blow up their houses. Recently one guy digged himself a grave, made a coffin, then he lied inside the grave and blew up explosive under himself. Other guy cut his head with motor saw. The men are trying to deal with the senselessness of the Serbo-croatian war in this drastic manner.

China's Yangtze river

China's biggest river is reportedly dying from pollution. It supports 400 million people and its eastern delta houses major Chinese cities that are the country's economic motors. A scientist says that 70 percent of the river could be unusable within five years unless toxic discharges are curbed. Added to this sobering news is the fact that the region is in its seventh consecutive year of drought.

Freak waves...

This is quite fascinating... it seems that the modified version of nonlinear Schrodinger equation, which describes the water surface and nonlinear waves, is probably correct. For over 30 years the scientific world has considered this equation as improbable.

One of the examples that the equation describes is the New Years Wave that happened in 1995, known as well as the Draupner wave, which confirmed the existance of freak waves. If such wave occurs, a mass of water climbs up to build a water wall, and when collapsing the water can hit the surface with a force equal to 1000t/square meter.

It's hard out there for a virgin...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A brothel has become the first in Berlin to offer special deals for virgins with prostitutes trained in the delicate art of catering for customers who have never had sex, a German newspaper reported Friday.

The brothel in the red light area of the Kreuzberg district of the city charges 60 euros for a half an hour of sex and works within the laws of Germany where prostitution is legal.

"These are men who either never had sex before or have never been in a brothel before," the brothel's operator was quoted as saying in Berlin's B.Z. tabloid.

"It's the first house of love in Berlin that specializes in taking care of beginners," wrote the daily on its front page.

Prostitutes are given "sensitivity training" for first-time clients, who the brothel operator said are not necessarily young but often 40 or older: "They need to be aware of how much courage it takes to go to a brothel the first time."

If anyone needs the services, guys... ;o)

Ironic

Tragedy and delays hit Australian mine rescue
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Two Australian miners trapped underground for 12 days will not be rescued at least until Monday because they are surrounded by rock five times as hard as concrete and extremely difficult to hack through, officials said. More

VS.

Car bombs kill 30 in Iraq
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Car bombs killed 30 people in Iraq on Sunday and wounded more than 70 in one of the bloodiest spasms of violence of recent weeks as political leaders closed in on a deal to form a national unity government. More

So much energy to save the two, when some idiots kill 30 others within seconds....

Rats to look for mines in Colombia.

There is currently a programme for training rats to sniff mines run in Colombia. Rats have equally good smell as dogs but their advantage is that they weigh much less than dogs, thus when finding mines it is very unlikely they will manage to set it to blow off.

Well, hope this programme works out... Colombia will be flooded with cute rat army to clean the land... :o)

Laos

I have heard about this before. It was few years back, that my dad gave me to read one article in newspapers. It was about Laos and the author claimed this country to be the most bombed country in the world! I was really stunned, as I did no recall hearing anything like that before. I knew about Vietnam or Korean wars, but when was Laos involved with USA I did not know.

It goes way past my comprehension that someone is capable of doing such horrible things.

SAVANNAKHET, Laos — With their parents working in the rice paddies and nothing much to do in the village, 7-year-old Dam Somphone and his two friends decided to go into the forest to look for a bomb.

It didn't take long to find one. Savannakhet is the most heavily bombed province in one of the most heavily bombed countries in the history of warfare. About 150 yards into the jungle, the boys spotted an unexploded bomblet from a U.S. cluster bomb dropped here during the Vietnam War.

Dam was happy. He wanted to see something go boom. He picked up the bomblet, which was the size of a tennis ball, and carried it back to the village. His friends ran away, but Dam was fearless. He hurled the BLU-63 bomblet against a board. When nothing happened, he picked it up and threw it again. This time, the bomblet detonated, sending dozens of metal fragments flying in all directions. They slashed into Dam's face, his shoulder, his knee and his abdomen, slicing his liver and small intestine.

"Nobody thought he would live," says his father, Pho Somphone, 33.
Dam survived after more than a month in a hospital across the border in Thailand. Now 9, Dam has recovered physically. But he has trouble sleeping. His confidence is gone. He spends a lot of time sitting silently in the gloom of his family's hut in Lampoi village. More

Who moved my cheese?

A book Who moved my cheese? helps you to adapt to changes and make decisions. I recommend it to read to anyone. It is tiny and makes sense ;o).

1, Having cheese makes you happy.
2, The more important the cheese is to you, the more you want to hold on to it.
3, If you do not change you become extinct, laugh at yourself to overcome the fear
4, What would you do if you weren't afraid?
5, Smell the cheese often so you know whenit is getting old.
6, Movement in a new direction helps you find new cheese.
7, When you move beyond your fear, you feel free.
8, Imagining myself enjoying new cheese even before i find it, leads me to it.
9, The quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you find new cheese.
10, It is safer to search in the maze than remain in a cheeseless situation.
11, Old beliefs do not lead you do new cheese.
12, When you see that you can find and enjoy new cheese you change course.
13, Noticing small changes early helps you adapt to the bigger changes that are to come.

Spencer Johnson, M.D.

Cholera sickens 20,000 Angolans as epidemic spreads

LUANDA, April 27 (Reuters) - Angola's cholera epidemic has become a national emergency with more than 20,000 infections and 941 deaths since the outbreak began in February, France-based Medicins sans Frontieres said on Thursday.

MSF said the disease had spread from the capital Luanda to the coastal city of Benguela and interior provinces such as Malange, with the total number of cases expected to double. More

Life is no straight and easy corridor along
which we travel free and unhampered,
but a maze of passages,
through which we must seek our way,
lost and confused, now and again
checked in a blind alley.

But always, if we have faith,
a door will open for us,
not perhaps one that we ourselves
would ever have thought of,
but one that will ultimately
prove good for us."

A.J. Cronin

Earth from the Air

Yann Arthus-Bertrand's mission was to create a photographic record of the natural world at the start of a new millennium. The collection of 160 images takes viewers off the ground and into the air to witness a bird's-eye view of the extraordinary patterns and colours created in landscapes all over the world. Some are the result of human activity - farming, industry or habitation. Others are entirely sculpted by nature itself. None of these images could be seen or even imagined if you were standing on the ground.

Together they tell a unique story that provokes many questions. What are we doing to our planet? What kind of world will future generations inherit? How can we preserve the heritage of natural abundance?

I saw this exhibit in Iceland and it was spectacular. The world is really amazing.

AFGHANISTAN: Amu Darya River needs management to prevent erosion - ministry

KALDAR, 6 April (IRIN) - Under a hot spring sun, Alim Mohammad, along with more than 50 other villagers, toils to stack sand bags to create a temporary embankment to stop the Amu Darya River from creating any more damage.

The river, that flows for more than 2,400 km and forms most of Afghanistan's northern border with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, has already swept away 40 ha of farm land around the village in the Kaldar district of northern province of Balkh and destroyed Mohammad's house in 2005.

"Summer season flooding swept away all my farming land and now I'm homeless, something has to be done," Mohammad said while taking a breather from the back-breaking work. More

This is sort of ridiculous, huge floodings in Afghanistan and no water in the Aral sea.

Reasons for floods...

There were quite few floods since 90s that I recall ... I do not remember floods from before... What cause all this? Can you make the greenhouse effects responsible? :P

Reasons for floods:
1) Long winter -- a lot of snow in the past few months (this one is obvious).
2) Cold weather freezes the earth that does not absorb the water any longer.

After the revolution a lot of farmland and forests became private again, including lakes.

3) So many farmlands are not tilled any longer; farmed earth absorbs water much better but most of land owners do no not use their land for agriculture any longer.
4) So many forests were cut out and so another way for the water being slowed and absorbed has dissapeared.
5) Lake and ponds have new owners; what many do not realize, owners do need to look after the lakes and have them regularly emptied in order to clean the bottom of the lake from all the mud. The bigger the layer of the mud the less water can fit and the faster the water spills over the banks. Owners do not have money to clean the ponds (or do not care) and there is no law that prescribes them to do so.
6) The same story goes with rivers. Either government or the institutions should care about the rivers being cleaned. There used to be a ship that regularly cleaned the bottom of the river Labe (Elbe). But these things are just too expensive to maintain them.
7) There are maps that show the possible flood areas around the river and lake banks. These areas are supposed to be free of any buildings as those are areas in "constant danger". After the 2002 flood it was discovered, that so many such lands were sold and build on. Well, this is plain stupid.

These are just few reasons that came to my mind.

Courtesy (Ye Ui)


Integrity (Yom Chi)


Perseverance (In Nae)


Self Control (Guk Ki)


Indomitable Spirit (Baekjool Boolgool)


The Tenets of Taekwon-do. I guess one should never lose the focus...

Speaking of the 7 wonders....

In march 1974 a group of Chinese workers in attempt to find water started to dig a well. All happened next to the mountain Li in the north of China. To their surprise, instead of water they found several Terracotta statues. Since then archeologists found a whole army of soldiers and their horses. It is estimated that the number of soldier statues will reach some 8000 pieces. Some archeological excavations still continue...

The Terracotta army was part of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor built during the 3rd century. The amazing thing about the statues is, that they are all unique in their size and facial features. It is assumed that the statues of the officers of Qin army were done according to their real look.

It seems that the army was destroyed quite soon after its creation due to a fire. Most of the statues were thus broken and had to go through a reconstruction. Some though kept their shape and even colour which gives quite important testimony of the army life and the looks of men in the 3rd century in China.

male body parts.. hehehe

Top 10 Male Body Parts Women Love

10,..Shoulders
9,...Chest
8,...Bicepts
7,...Lips
6,...Tongue
5,...Hands
4,...Hips
3,...Abs
2,...P-thing :o)
1,...Butt

I had to put down this topic. I will never forget the first time I realized that girls actually do have favourite male body parts! I was 18 and I was talked to by a female Argentinian friend of mine, who was some 16 then. I was to see my male friend and she asked me to look at his butt for her and did that gesture with her hands which I will never ever manage to get out of my head...! And I thought WTF??!! So she explained to me... and now I know... and so here the favourite male body parts are put into order according to girls' preferences.

And although I am the supposed woman ;o) I still do not understand the male butt on the first place?!

(thank you Dody, I was looking for info on this topic and the web page with pickup lines helped me out :o).

Reykjavik rocks! :o)

Study Says Oslo Is World's Priciest City

Oslo has overtaken Tokyo as the world's most expensive city, according to a survey published on Tuesday. Tokyo had held the top spot for 14 years in the Economist Intelligence Unit's biannual survey.

Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, saw the largest proportional rise in the cost of living in 2005, moving above another Japanese city, Osaka, into third place, the survey showed. (I did good to come back home from Reykjavik yet in 2004 :o)).

Paris was in fifth place, followed by Copenhagen, London etc.

Seems that I spent 7 years of my life living in the 3 of the top 7 most expensive cities in the world... :o)). And I wonder when Praha will rise among the top 10 :o)). (AIECES wise we are already 3rd :o))).

1 click to feed 1 child for 1 day!

FightHunger.org is partnered with the United Nations World Food Programme to help end child hunger and play a key role in meeting the goals of the U.N. Millennium Development Campaign. Visit the website to check out all of the different projects underway.

Your click will trigger a US$ 0.19 donation from sponsors, TNT Global Mail, Express, and Logistics. This will enable one more child to have a nutritious meal at school. Offering a healthy meal at school encourages children to attend, helps them study, and provides the food they need to learn and grow up healthy.

Let's each of us feed a child for one year. Silly 365 clicks when you have nothing better to do.

There are over 800 million people that suffer from chronical hunger, out of which over 300 million are children. So far there are around 38 000 clicks on the web page.

The DOTS treatment

I had a chance to take part on one conference where there was a session about Tuberculosis (TB) and the possibility of its treatment. I must admit I still thought that the disease is uncurable and suddenly I was told about something called the DOTS treatment (Directly Observed Treatment Short-Course).

The conference was held in Azerbaijan and the lady (I am afraid I do not remember her name) was a nurse working in other post-soviet countries in Central Asia and Caucasus. She told us that post-soviet countries recorded a great increase in the amount of people suffering from TB, a disease of poverty. Another quite horrifying truth was, that over 20% of people suffering from TB in these countries acquired the drug-resistant form of it.

There are several reasons why is this so.
Firstly, the treatment requires to take a handfull of pills everyday for 6-8 months to successfully treat it. Thus it is essential to have a nurse observing your progress as some people might give up on the treatment.
Second reason is the short supply of medicine in this region. The interruption of the treatment causes the development of the drug-resistant form of TB which could infect other people.
Third reason that I was told is, that many people in post-soviet countries already have resistance towards some medicines (there is no necessity of medicine prescriptions for pharmacies so you can easily get antibiotics for anything, even if you do not need them).

The treatment of the regular form of TB can be cured with medicine that costs $10, whilst the drug-resistant form may cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. The treatment of the drug-resistant form takes 3times more than the regular, cca 20 months. Thus with the available financial resources there might be no possibility of treating the people with the drug-resistant form.

The Aral Sea

I have learnt about Aral sea a long time ago and I have always found the names of the two rivers that fead the lake really cool - Amu Dariya and Syrdariya. :o) All this though stayed in the back of my mind till I was older and started to understand what is going on in that part of the world.

The saline lake is slowly dissappearing and the area is becoming disastrous.

Aral Sea is situated on the borders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and used to be the 4th largest lake in the world. The two rivers, Amu Dariya and Syrdariya, run through a desert basin where cotton has been growing since 1960s. The irrigation has very much used up the water from the two rivers and thus the lake started to dissappear.


The quality of the water in the Aral sea is very bad. It has a high concentration of salts but is also contaminated by fertilizers and pesticides from the agricultural fields. The rich fishing industry had to be stopped altogether and the contamination has further led towards creation and enlargment of salty deserts and swamps around the lake.

This disaster has huge effect upon the people that live in the area. The lake and the soil nearby is impossible to use, the fresh water is also not healthy and contaminated. The unhealthy environment is cause of a lot of diseases, especially tuberculosis.


There are some plans for saving the lake; number of NGOs work in that area. I guess the time will show us if they succeed.

One World Film Festival

This year was the 8th time that One World Film Festival was held in The Czech Republic. The festival shows Human Rights Films from any corner of the world and anyone can submit a movie. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to visit this year´s festival.

This Wednesday our TV showed one of the movies that got an award during this film festival. It was called Zdroj / The Source. Unfortunately the other TV channel was just showing the final football match between Czech Rep. and Norway (to qualify for the World Champs), so I think only a minority of people actually saw the documentary.

I am really sad I got to see the movie only now and not in the spring before my trip to Caucasus. It was about Azerbaijan and the oil. Very disturbing movie. Though not too surprising for me any longer. It showed how desperate lifes do the oil workers have. How insignificant salaries they get, it is about their "houses" that are built straight in the oil fields, about their cows that eat grass next to an oil spills, cows that are bred for milk and cheese!

The movie talks about an Azeri State Oil Company, as well as BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) oil pipeline that is built by several international oil companies (with BP in charge) and the people that had owned some land which was later selected as the one where the pipeline was to be lead. The pipeline is nearly done in Azerbaijan, there are last parts to be finished close to the Georgian borders (the mountainous area).

I was really confused. The movie showed (and I believe it) that some local authorities had falsified documents of the land owners, had claimed it does not belong to the farmers and thus did not pay them for the land (money that the BTC promised to give the farmers; I guess the money ended up in the pockets of the local authorities). Imagine poor people, poor farmers whose only wealth is the little land they have and suddenly they have nothing. And there is no authorities, no power to which they can turn to for a help.

The corruption is huge, the want for money and power great, the compassion with locals none and that is why around 70% of Azeri people live in poverty. A country that owes huge oil reserves... a country that will most likely join Venezuela, Nigeria, Sudan etc. in their faith. A country which could have become if properly managed well developed with great living standards for its inhabitants.

That makes me so damn mad, seing how some people are low, greedy and without principles. People who have the money, the position and the power to make the change for all the others and who only choose to make more money, get higher position, more power and to make more people more desperate and needy. What a prospect for life of all of us.