Complete Wellness

Bert Wilkinson

GEORGETOWN, May 31 2006 (IPS) – When the Montreal-based Cambior Inc. closed its depleted gold mine in western Guyana last year, authorities feared that the country would disappear from the map of major gold-producing nations.
After all, they figured that Guyana s brigade of about 20,000 miners, made up mostly of locals and Brazilians who have crossed the southwestern border, could never find the millions of dollars needed to move from small- and medium-scale mines to large projects the size of Cambior, which extracted 3.7 million ounces in 13 years at its Omai site on the western Essequibo River, until production ended last September.

But with gold prices hovering near 700 dollars per ounce, three times more than a decade ago, industry officials say the country is, like a pure nugget, gleaming in the distance to those wiling to invest in gold given predictions that surging prices might be around for a while yet.

We are passing through a golden period that the international analysts say will last quite a few years, said Tony Shields, executive director of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association. We have never had so much interest from people all over in the industry and this is clearly because of the price.

However, safety and environmental concerns about the gold mining industry linger here. Four small-scale miners working in open mud pits have died in recent years when poorly constructed walls collapsed and buried them.

The local environmental protection agency has complained about the use of heavy dredging machinery to extract gold-bearing ore, which is says has changed the courses of small inland rivers and disrupted local ecosystems.
Related IPS Articles

The Omai mine had also used cyanide to extract gold from ore. Though this process is widely touted as the most efficient system of extracting gold, spills into waterways have caused concerns that the heavy metal may linger for years to come.

In August 1995, two years after mining started, a storage pit holding 3.2 million cubic metres of cyanide-tainted mining waste broke open, spewing the waste for 100 hours into the Omai and nearby Essequibo rivers.

Non-governmental organisations sued the company for compensation for communities living downstream from the mine. Some of the cases have been settled, and others are still pending.

Local miners currently use mercury to extract gold, which is also toxic, but Shields said that campaigns are continuing to educate miners about proper usage of mercury in waterways where indigenous Amerindians and other communities live.

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Suriname, where less than two years ago Cambior opened the Gross Rosebel mine 160 kilometres south of the capital Paramaribo, the company is also cashing in, announcing record profits of 20.2 million dollars last year.

As an indication of how juicy the industry has become in recent months, Rosebel yielded up 341,000 ounces for Cambior at a production cost of a mere 208 dollars per ounce.

There is no doubt we are benefiting greatly from this period. Prices are good, said spokeswoman Seeta Mohamed.

Earlier this month, gold prices hit 730 dollars per ounce. Analysts say that with the insecurity in oil hot spots like Iraq and Nigeria, many investors are likely to stick with gold as a safe haven.

Eyeing Cambior s success across its eastern border, Guyanese officials have succeeded in convincing three Canadian companies to explore large areas in the western and northwestern regions of this former British colony, but none of the projects is expected to come to fruition in less than two years.

The three, Sacre-Coeur Minerals Inc. and Strata Gold, both of Vancouver, and Ontario-based Guyana Goldfields Inc., are expected to invest an estimated 20 million dollars by the time the mines get rolling. They already employ hundreds of skilled and unskilled labourers, and this workforce could double when mining actually starts.

Robeson Benn, head of the national geology and mines commission, says conservative estimates show that each of the three mines could produce a minimum of one million ounces of gold, putting the country back on the map of major producing nations.

Centuries ago, British explorer Sir Walter Raleigh and others had come to Guyana in search of the legendary city of gold, El Dorado, and found nothing but the country briefly lived up to that label between 1993 and September 2005 when Cambior operated Omai Gold Mines at its peak, one of the top three in the western hemisphere.

But even as the Canadians explore the mosquito-ridden Amazonian jungles in earnest, authorities have turned to small-scale miners to extract gold.

National production is expected to reach 200,000 ounces this year, 38,000 more than last year and 65,000 more than in 2004. Shields says that investors with money to spare are knocking on the doors of mining companies, betting that the surging prices will last. The same is true in Suriname, he says.

As an indication of how confident analysts are about prices holding steady, the World Bank recently invested 4.7 million dollars in the Guyana Goldfields project, even though commercial production is still two years away.

When Cambior s mines were rolling, gold had jumped from the fifth most important export earner after sugar, rice, bauxite and timber to second. It is now at number four ahead of timber.

Since the Omai disaster, Guyana has passed an environmental protection act that requires monitoring of the surface and ground water near mining operations, among other oversight measures.

But according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Guyana and Suriname, gold mining operations still use heavy equipment that damages soil and causes deforestation. They also use mercury to bind and purify the gold, much of which evaporates and is returned to the environment through rain or is dumped directly into surface waters.

Miners in turn are exposed to mercury vapour and can develop health problems, while the surrounding communities can be harmed through eating predator fish contaminated with mercury.

In March, the group launched a project with funding from the Inter-American Development Bank to create a national gold mining association in Suriname and to train thousands of gold miners in new and environment-friendly mining techniques.

We want to make these miners aware that there are methods of mining which will benefit them and the environment, said Michelet Fontaine, director of WWF Guianas regional programme office.

Hopefully, the miners will be persuaded to switch to more environment-friendly methods such as using mechanical means to extract the gold or replacing mercury with less harmful chemicals, he said in a statement.

Juliana Lara Resende

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 7 2006 (IPS) – After famously telling reporters that they don t do body counts , Pentagon officials now say that they have in fact been keeping a record of civilian casualties in Iraq for one year. And while that number remains classified, independent estimates suggest that at least 50,000 people have died in the country since the 2003 invasion.
According to statistics compiled by the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies, as reported recently in the Los Angeles Times, that total is 20,000 higher then the George W. Bush administration had previously estimated.

Last year, Bush asserted that, 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis.

In terms of population size, this would be equivalent to 570,000 U.S. citizens killed in the same period of time, noted the Jun. 25 LA Times article.

However, the Iraqi Health Ministry says this figure is artificially low since it does not include deaths that occurred outside Baghdad in the first year of the occupation, or those in the three northern provinces of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan..

And due to the ongoing daily violence and security crackdowns, as well as power shortages and failing communications networks, health workers have been unable to compile accurate data concerning how many people die in the country.
Related IPS Articles

According to the London-based Iraq Body Count (IBC), a non-governmental group that keeps a database on media-reported deaths in Iraq since May 2003, last year s toll was the highest in the three years of the occupation: 36 violent deaths on average per day approximately twice the toll of the first year.

Early last week, U.S. officials in Iraq said they have been counting civilian casualties since July 2005.

Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, head of the Multi-National Forces in Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad that U.S. soldiers are killing and injuring fewer civilians. According to him, non-combatant deaths at checkpoints have been reduced from about four to one per week in the last six months.

But John Sloboda from IBC notes that checkpoint killings are only one category of death caused by the U.S. military .

We have no proper evidence as to how meticulously the U.S. has been counting all categories of death caused by its own military, he told IPS.

Following Chiarelli s announcement, the Washington-based Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) and other humanitarian organisations called on the U.S. military to release its data and back up the information with further details.

The U.S. military says they do protect civilians and we do believe them, but we can t know how true that is without the data, CIVIC s executive director, Sarah Holewinski, told IPS.

Sloboda added, Indeed, there are on-record statements from military commanders saying that no way does the U.S. count casualties caused in engagements with hostile forces.

When it is in a situation where its own troops are under fire, each member of the military is asked to guess how many enemy he may have killed. These reports are fed back upwards and combined somehow but obviously this can be no more than a guess and extremely subject to bias and political manipulation by the U.S, he said.

Death certificates are issued and counted separately by the morgue and the Health Ministry, so the two data sets do not overlap.

>From 2003 through mid-2006, the Baghdad morgue received 30,204 bodies, according to the LA Times. The Health Ministry documented 18,933 deaths from military clashes and terrorist attacks between Apr. 5, 2004 and the Jun. 1, 2006. Together, this amounts to 49,137 deaths.

Regarding the U.S. refusal to disclose an official number, Holewinski said, The media is doing a very good job on pushing the military to release it. However, she added that this will not happen unless the Congress requires [the Pentagon] to .

IBC estimates that between 38,786 and 43,215 civilians have died as a consequence of the military invasion of Iraq since the war began, excluding deaths among the Iraqi security forces.

It s a baseline. It s a really good measure, but it s not the whole story, so we need the U.S. to release their data, Holewinski told IPS.

If the U.S. (military) really wants to put information into the public domain, then it should provide the date and place of each incident, the name of all victims and perpetrators, stressed Sloboda. What they are currently doing is self-serving tokenism and an insult to their victims.

It s an utter obscenity, and the whole international community stands judged for its abject failure in this respect, he concluded.

Milagros Salazar

LIMA, Aug 17 2006 (IPS) – Arankartuktaram! This Achuar cry sums up what indigenous communities in the heart of Peru s Amazon jungle region are demanding from the State and multinational oil companies a little respect.
For thirty years the Achuar people in the Corrientes River basin were unable to stop outsiders from polluting their environment. Now, the indigenous group is about to become the first in Peru to take legal action, as it plans to file suit against the companies it blames for the damages.

Oil drilling on indigenous land began in the 1970s with the arrival of U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Oxy). In 1996, Pluspetrol Norte, a local subsidiary of Argentine-based Pluspetrol, began to operate in the upper basins of the Pastaza, Corrientes and Tigre rivers, and expanded its operational area in 2000.

At the most recent indigenous assembly, held Aug. 5-6, the apus (chiefs) accused oil companies of endangering the Achuar people s health and environment.

This group comprises 8,000 inhabitants of 31 communities in the northern department (province) of Loreto. Of these, 3,000 to 4,000 are direct victims of oil drilling, says Racimos de Ungurahui, a non-governmental organisation that works on behalf of the Achuar in Peru s Amazon jungle region.

The State, in complicity with the oil companies, is systematically violating our rights. The government is incapable of sanctioning those who pollute our rivers and land, said Robert Guimaraes, vice president of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP), an umbrella group bringing together 47 indigenous federations and six indigenous regional organisations. That s why it is up to us to take action, he told IPS.
Related IPS Articles

Guimaraes brought the issue up in the Peruvian legislature, when on Aug. 9 he and representatives of the Federation of Native Communities of the Corrientes River (FECONACO) participated in events marking the International Day of the World s Indigenous Peoples. AIDESEP leaders believe they have enough evidence to sue the companies. One of the most revealing reports comes from the Ministry of Health itself; it contains the first government warnings about high blood concentrations of cadmium and lead in Achuar people.

The government study of the quality of water and biological testing among communities of the Corrientes River basin was undertaken in response to a FECONACO request. Published in May, it reported the presence of heavy metals in the indigenous community, after analysing samples from 199 people, including 74 children aged 2 to 17.

The report showed that cadmium levels exceeded the acceptable limit of 0.1 mg per litre of blood in 98.6 percent of the children and adolescents examined in the Corrientes river basin area. Cadmium levels in 97.3 percent surpassed even those usually found in smokers 0.2 mg even though the people examined were non-smokers.

Furthermore, dangerous concentrations of 0.21 to 0.5 mg per litre were found in 37.8 percent of the children and adolescents, while the biological tolerance value (BAT) of 0.5 mg was exceeded in 59.4 percent of the minors. Similar levels were found in adults.

Testing for lead also yielded disturbing results: 66.2 per cent of the youngsters were found to exceed the limit for lead established for children (up to 10 mg per litre of blood). However, those over 18 had blood levels under the acceptable limit of 20 mg per litre.

According to La Oroya Cannot Wait , a report authored by the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defence (AIDA) and the Peruvian Environmental Law Society (SPDA), high concentrations of cadmium in the blood can cause lung damage and cancer, kidney disease, weakening of the bones and the immune system, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and heart disease. Lead, in turn, affects the nervous system, endangering the brain and the kidneys.

But Pluspetrol Norte, citing the government report s finding that lead concentrations in the water were within acceptable limits, denied that the company is responsible for the high metal concentrations in the blood.

However, the study also underscores the fact that it lacks data on other heavy metals in the river, such as cadmium and copper, due to methodological limitations.

In 2004, China s state-run National Petroleum Corporation, the Asian giant s main oil producer, acquired a 45 percent share of Pluspetrol Norte, which produced 54 percent of Peru s oil that year.

The company adheres closely to the limits set by the law. We believe the ministry s report was carried out in a serious manner, but we cannot conclude that the levels of contaminants in the blood are due to heavy metals in the rivers. No causal correlation can be made between one and the other, one of the oil company s representatives told IPS.

Racimos de Ungurahui said that in order to accurately assess pollution levels in jungle rivers, what is needed is a sediment analysis, because the heavy metals settle in the riverbed.

This, however, is problematic, because as stated in the Health Ministry report Peru has no technical regulations to establish maximum concentration values for heavy metals, hydrocarbons and other elements in sediment.

The NGO said there is also pollution in lagoons and lakes where the indigenous communities fish, and that animals that they hunted for food have fled the area. A Racimos de Ungurahui report describes a domino effect of damages triggered by oil activity, which has violated one of the communities most basic rights: the right to food.

Following a Jul. 20-24 indigenous congress held in Loreto, the Regional Organisation of AIDESEP in Iquitos (ORAI) demanded the establishment of permanent health monitoring mechanisms to prevent future negative impacts on the health of indigenous people in oil drilling areas, and called for an environmental state of emergency to be declared in the Corrientes River basin.

The ORAI statement also demands that the State and the Pluspetrol Norte company clean up Achuar land and implement cutting-edge clean technology for the entire drilling process, throughout the company s operations.

On behalf of the affected communities, Guimaraes emphasised the urgent need to reinject drilling waste deep into the ground, deal with the environmental damages and prevent new oil companies from establishing a foothold in Achuar territory.

Energy and Mines Minister Juan Valdivia Romero told IPS that officials from his ministry are holding meetings with management at Pluspetrol Norte, to encourage the company to fast-track plans to reinject produced waters into the ground as an environmentally acceptable disposal method.

Commenting on the environmental damage caused by oil companies, Valdivia Romero stated that we recognise how important it is to the communities that the environmental liabilities be reduced as soon as possible. We, as the supervisory entity, are strictly enforcing the companies compliance with regulations.

For its part, Pluspetrol Norte announced that it is now reinjecting some 210,000 barrels a day of produced water, which exceeds its original plan of 80,000. The company estimates the work will be complete by 2009.

However, Racimos de Ungurahui said the company is moving too slowly, and has criticised the reinjection plan, which according to the NGO addresses a mere 15 percent of Pluspetrol Norte s total waste waters.

Roberto Ramallo, general manager of Pluspetrol Norte, said in a press release that we are aware of a history of environmental impacts on the zone; consequently, we are developing mitigation plans to improve the quality of life in these communities.

The executive pointed out that the company provides free medical care to 18,000 people, and is building and repairing schools for 4,000 of the area s native students.

But Guimaraes calls this band-aid assistance. We want to achieve our own level of development in harmony with nature, without losing our identity, language, culture and land. We are pushing for a multicultural and multilingual state, he told IPS.

The root of the pollution can be traced to the Peruvian State s vision of development, which is based on a model where natural resources are exploited without respect for affected communities, said José De Echave of Cooperacción, an NGO that works primarily with mining and social issues.

Indigenous communities have also turned to Congress for help. The new chairman of the congressional Amazon and Indigenous Affairs Committee, Carlos Arana, said he began to review the concerns of the communities on Aug. 15.

We will look into the possibility of presenting bills that help address the demands of these communities and that also enforce the standards set by international treaties relevant to the issue, Arana told IPS.

In the next few days, indigenous organisations will make an announcement on the measures to be adopted. Although their spokespeople have not clearly revealed what these may entail, the first step is likely to involve legal action, followed by, as so many times before, negotiations with the companies that drill for black gold.

Julio Godoy

BREMEN, Germany, Sep 21 2006 (IPS) – The Panamanian flagged ship Probo Koala unloaded more than 550 tonnes of toxic waste at Abidjan port in Cote d Ivoire a month back. Emissions from that toxic waste have killed seven people and poisoned thousands.
The deadly cargo was shipped to Abidjan from Amsterdam, where port authorities rejected the tanker Jul.2 because of its toxic load. The Probo Koala had been chartered by Trafigure Beheer BV, a firm that says it specialises in the supply and off-take of crude oil, petroleum products, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), metals and metal ores and concentrates.

Trafigure Beheer BV admits now that the vessel did not undergo mandatory cleaning before taking a new load of gasoline blend. The reason it did not ultimately do so is because the waste disposal company in Amsterdam wanted to renegotiate its original contract, the company said in a statement Tuesday this week.

Company spokesperson Jan Maat told reporters in Amsterdam that cleaning the ship in the Netherlands would have meant losing an enormous amount of money. That would be 35,000 dollars per day of delay at the port. Therefore, we decide to pump the waste again into the tanker, and search for another port, he said.

One port available for unloading the toxic waste was Abidjan, some 7,000 km away.

The whole procedure was illegal, Andreas Bernstorff, a Hamburg-based expert in toxic waste trade and former Greenpeace activist told IPS. The port authorities in Amsterdam should have forced the Probo Koala to go to the incinerator located nearby in Rotterdam.
Bernstorff said the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal regulates the industrialised countries responsibilities for disposing of toxic waste. Following the convention, the port authorities in Amsterdam should have not allowed the Probo Koala to continue its route as if nothing wrong had happened.

The Basel Convention was adopted in Basel, Switzerland in 1989, and came into force in 1992. The Convention forbids all forms of hazardous waste export from the most industrialised countries to developing countries.

But several industrialised countries such as the United States, Australia, and Canada have not ratified it. The Netherlands was among all 15 older members of the European Union who signed the convention since its inception in 1989.

The environmental organisation Basel Action Network (BAN) based in Seattle in the United States says disposal of the Probo Koala s toxic waste in Abidjan was a clear violation of international environmental norms.

Leading environmentalists have condemned the move. The disaster in Abidjan is a particularly painful illustration of the human suffering caused by the illegal dumping of wastes, United Nations Environmental Programme executive director Achim Steiner said in a press statement released by the Basel Convention s secretariat.

It s pure petrochemical waste, said Rudolph Walder, a Swiss hazardous waste expert with the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination mission in Abidjan. He said the waste material included solids, oily substances and water products that could come from a refinery, from the petrochemical industry or from the cleaning of ships.

It is very clear to me that (the waste) is a product that violates the Basel convention, he added.

The present situation looks very much like 1988 (before the Basel convention was adopted) all over again, Jim Puckett from BAN told IPS. Now, despite the regulations, there is more evidence of death and disease from waste trade than ever before.

Martin Bézieux, expert on toxic waste at Greenpeace France told IPS that the rules forbidding such exports exist, but their application and the control of their application are insufficient.

Export of toxic waste from industrialised countries to developing countries is routine. According to Greenpeace, inspections of 18 European seaports in 2005 found that as much as 47 percent of waste destined for export, including e-waste, was illegal.

From Britain alone, at least 23,000 metric tonnes of undeclared or grey market electronic waste was illegally shipped in 2003 to South-East Asia, India, Africa and China, Greenpeace reports.

In the United States, the Silicon Valley Toxic Coalition (SVTC), an environmental group campaigning against the export of electronic waste, estimates that 50-80 percent of the electronic waste collected for recycling is being exported to developing countries.

In its report Exporting harm the high-tech trashing of Asia , released in 2002, the SVTC estimated that between 1997 and 2007, some 500 million computers used in the U.S. would become obsolete, leading to production of more than 600,000 tonnes of toxic waste, including plastics, lead, cadmium, chromium, and mercury.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, admits that 50 percent of waste exports leaving European ports do not comply with international legislation. The Commission announced in June this year that it will reinforce application of its own legislation starting 2007.

Environmental experts estimate that more than 100 million tonnes of toxic waste is produced worldwide every year, and about 10 percent of this waste is exported.

These figures give an idea of the dimension of the situation, but cannot completely illustrate the reality of the trade with toxic waste, Pierre Portas, deputy executive secretary at the secretariat of the Basel Convention told IPS.

A particular danger is the export of end of life ships contaminated with asbestos and electronic waste to scrapping yards in Asia.

Earlier this year the French government was forced to abandon export of its asbestos contaminated military aircraft carrier Clemenceau to the Indian scrapping yard Alang. But another ship, the SS Norway, formerly owned by the French government, and which is said to contain 1250 tonnes of asbestos, is waiting to be dismantled at the same scrapping yard.

Asbestos is known to cause a progressive disease of the lungs, and can provoke lung cancer and malignant mesothelioma, a form of cancer in the sac lining the chest or abdomen.

นอกเหนือจากเกมเพลย์การยิงปืนที่มันส์หยดแล้ว อีกหนึ่งสิ่งที่ดูเหมือนว่าจะมาพร้อมกับเกม Call of Duty นี้ทุกภาคก็คือขนาดการติดตั้งที่สูงมากขึ้นแทบจะทุกปีจนบางปีก็พุ่งไปถึงหลัก 200GB แล้ว ซึ่งทางค่าย Activision ก็รับทราบถึงปัญหานี้ดี และพยายามหาทางแก้ไขต่อเนื่องเช่นการนำเสนอระบบแบ่งไฟล์ติดตั้งเพื่อเลือกเนื้อหาที่ต้องการ กระนั้นความสำคัญของกราฟิกในเกมก็เป็นสิ่งที่พวกเขาไม่สามารถมองข้ามเหมือนกัน

ล่าสุด ปัญหาการติดตั้งก็ได้เกิดเป็นข้อถกเถียงอีกครั้งเมื่อผู้เล่นบางส่วนสังเกตพบว่าในหน้าร้านค้าของ Microsoft Store บน Xbox Series X|S ได้มีการแสดงผลให้เห็นว่า Call of Duty Black Ops 6 จะต้องใช้พื้นที่ติดตั้งสูงถึง 310GB นับว่าสูงที่สุดในเกมทุกภาค และยังอาจจะสูงที่สุดเมื่อเทียบกับหลายเกมแฟรนไชส์อื่นๆ ด้วย ทำเอาทุกคนต่างตกใจยกใหญ่ โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งกับผู้ใช้งาน Xbox Series S รุ่นมาตรฐาน 500GB ที่จะกินพื้นที่การใช้งานเกือบทั้งหมดเลย

ทั้งนี้ทั้งนั้น ในเวลาไม่นาน Activision ก็ได้ออกมาชี้แจงเพิ่มเติมว่าแท้ที่จริงแล้ว เกมจะมีเนื้อที่ไม่ถึง 310GB แต่อย่างใด เพราะว่าบนหน้าร้านค้านั้นแสดงให้เห็นถึงขนาดเมื่อติดตั้งเกมในชุด ‘Call of Duty’ ที่เป็นเหมือน Client หรือไฟล์หลักที่เหมือนกับเมนูสำหรับรวบรวมทั้งช่องทางการเข้าเกมภาค Modern Warfare II, III และ Warzone เช่นเดียวกับไฟล์อื่นที่เกี่ยวข้องนั่นเอง แต่ในกรณีที่ผู้เล่นติดตั้งเพียงแค่เกม Black Ops 6 อย่างเดียว จะมีเนื้อที่ที่ต่ำกว่านี้มาก โดยในอนาคตหน้าร้านจะเปลี่ยนแปลงอีกครั้งเมื่อไฟล์เกมภาคใหม่ได้รับการกำหนดขนาดเรียบร้อย คำพูดจาก สล็อตเว็บตรง

แน่นอนว่าแม้จะไม่ติดตั้งพื้นที่ในขนาดที่ดูใหญ่แบบระเบิดเถิดเทิงขนาดนั้น แต่ทุกคนก็ยังกังวลเกี่ยวกับขนาดติดตั้งอยู่เหมือนกัน อย่างไรเสียสิ่งที่เราสังเกตได้ก็คือ ทางทีมงานได้พยายามที่จะแก้ไขจุดนี้ต่อเนื่อง และหนึ่งในนั้นคือวิธีการใช้ระบบแสดงผลกราฟิก Texture Streaming ที่จำเป็นต้องเชื่อมต่อกับอินเทอร์เน็ตตลอดเวลา ในการเล่นเพื่อทดแทนการติดตั้งไฟล์กราฟิกคุณภาพสูงโดยตรงลงเครื่อง โดยวิธีใช้งานคือการยิงภาพจากเซิร์ฟเวอร์ผ่านระบบออนไลน์ทดแทนครับ

Call of Duty Black Ops 6 จะเป็นเรื่องราวต่อเนื่องจากภาค Black Ops Cold War ในปี 2020 โดยแคมเปญหลักมาพร้อมกับธีมสปายอยู่ในยุค 1990 พร้อมโหมดการเล่นแคมเปญ – PvP ออนไลน์ครบครัน ซึ่งโหมดมัลติเพลเยอร์จะนำเสนอคอนเทนต์ฉากที่พัฒนาใหม่ถึง 16 ฉาก รองรับความสนุกในโหมดการเล่นทั้ง 6v6 คลาสสิกยอดฮิต และโหมดพิเศษที่จะเปิดตัวในอนาคต โดยมีกำหนดวางจำหน่ายในวันที่ 25 ตุลาคมนี้ทั้งบน PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S และ PC เช่นเดียวกับการให้บริการผ่าน Game Pass

Activision Call of Duty Black Ops 6

นับตั้งแต่ปี 2017 เป็นต้นมาThe Legend of Zeldaก็ได้ยกระดับประสบการณ์การเล่นเกมใหม่อีกครั้งจากรูปแบบแอ็กชันผจญภัยธรรมดามาเป็นเกมโอเพนเวิลด์เต็มตัว มอบอิสระให้ผู้เล่นสามารถสนุกกับเกมด้วยวิธีของตนโดยที่ไม่ต้องบังคับว่าจะต้องเล่นไปตามทางเป๊ะๆ เหมือนภาคสามมิติแบบเก่าๆ อย่าง Twilight Princess และ Ocarina of Time กระนั้นแล้วก็ยังคงมีคนที่หวนคิดถึงเกมเพลย์แบบดั้งเดิมและคอยเรียกร้องอยู่เรื่อยๆ คำพูดจาก สล็อตเว็บตรง

ล่าสุดคุณ Eiji Aonumaโปรดิวเซอร์ของซีรีส์ก็ได้มีโอกาสพูดคุยกับเว็บไซต์สื่อเกมต่างประเทศอย่าง IGN ถึงประเด็นนี้แล้วด้วยเหมือนกัน ซึ่งตนยอมรับแบบขำๆ ว่าบางครั้งพวกเขาก็รู้สึกสนใจมากๆ ว่าทำไมยังมีคนที่กล่าวว่า‘ชอบเกมแบบเก่ามากกว่า’และก็ทำให้อดสงสัยไม่ว่า‘ทำไมถึงอยากจะกลับไปเล่นเกมแบบที่มีการจำกัดฟังก์ชันหรือแอ็กชันการกระทำ’อีก แต่กระนั้นตนก็เข้าใจว่าผู้เล่นเหล่านี้อาจมองในมุมของความรู้สึกนอสตัลเจียนั่นเอง

หากยังจำกันได้ แม้ว่าเนื้อเรื่องของไทม์ไลน์ Breath of the Wild ที่กินเรื่องราวยาวมาสองภาคสเกลใหญ่ยักษ์ถึงภาค Tears of the Kingdom จะจบลงโดยสมบูรณ์แล้ว แต่ถึงกระนั้นผู้พัฒนาก็ยืนยันว่าระบบการเล่นแบบโอเพนเวิลด์กำลังจะเป็นแม่แบบให้กับเกมภาคอื่นๆ ในอนาคตด้วย ดังนั้นก็มีโอกาสสูงทีเดียวที่เราน่าจะไม่ได้เห็นรูปแบบเกมสมัยเก่าอีกต่อไป สำหรับเพื่อนๆ ชื่นชอบหรือไม่อย่างไรลองมาแลกเปลี่ยนกันดูนะ

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomวางจำหน่ายให้กับเครื่องเล่น Nintendo Switch แล้ววันนี้ โดยเป็นการผจญภัยทั้งบนแผ่นดินไฮรูลและอาณาจักรบนท้องฟ้า นอกจากนี้ยังมีการนำเสนอฟีเจอร์ใหม่ๆ เช่นพลังในการเดินทางข้ามกำแพงหรือเพดานต่างๆ ด้วยเช่นกัน โดยเนื้อหาเกี่ยวข้องกับภัยคุกคามครั้งใหม่ที่นำโดยจอมปีศาจ Ganondorf จะทำให้ดินแดนไฮรูลต้องสั่นคลอนอีกครั้ง

IGNThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom นินเทนโด เกม

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 18 2006 (IPS) – Cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of women in sexual and reproductive health services in Argentina, often accepted as normal by doctors, nurses and even patients, is being closely examined by a network of organisations determined to stamp out these practices.
The idea is to report mistreatment so that it becomes visible, but also to inform people about how women should be treated, Susana Arminchiardi, a researcher at the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defence of Women s Rights (CLADEM) explained to IPS.

It all began in late 2003 with an investigative report titled Baring It All ( Con todo al aire ), based on interviews with dozens of women in the northeastern Argentine province of Santa Fe, whose testimonies revealed treatment that denigrates the very humanity of the doctors and nurses responsible for giving care If you liked the fun part, put up with this part now! , Spread your legs and shut up, you sure liked doing that before, You should have thought of this beforehand, obstetricians and nurses regularly snap at women in labour, according to the report.

In some cases the women are scolded for dirtying the sheets after giving birth, or told that they are filthy and to go and take a bath, you stink!

The patients are forced to remain naked and without a covering sheet while they are examined by a doctor and a group of students, who carry out manual gynaecological examinations and other procedures without even asking their permission. I felt outraged, ashamed, about 13 students stuck their fingers inside me, one woman said.

The report led to intervention by the Santa Fe ombudsman s office, which called professionals and officials in the health field together to instigate a change in the way people were treated. And changes are already visible, CLADEM has reported. The report also prompted the inclusion of Health and Human Rights as a subject taught to medical students.
Related IPS Articles

Arminchiardi said that the new practices, worked out by health professionals, social workers and patients, include creating spaces where a woman may have privacy and also may be accompanied by a family member, and will have her permission asked before being examined by medical students or interns.

Providing hospital gowns, and identifying women by name, have also been incorporated, in the latter case in order to overcome the custom of calling all pregnant women Mother or Mum , whether they have come to give birth or are being treated for complications after an abortion, which is illegal in Argentina.

This strategy has been adopted in other provinces where similar mistreatment prevails. With the support of CLADEM and the Institute of Gender, Law and Development, between November 2005 and June 2006 workshops have been held in the provinces of Tucumán, Neuquén, Santiago del Estero, Mendoza and Córdoba.

The workshops or seminars always begin with a dramatised version of the Baring It All report. Members of the audience, most of whom are involved in health care, recognise that these practices are commonplace, and many of them openly admit that they had no idea that such treatment violated human rights.

Participants in the seminars include doctors, nurses, social workers, members of women s organisations, academics and health officials. But Mendoza, in the northwest, was the only province to offer its two largest maternity hospitals as venues for the workshop, with the aim of encouraging all staff to attend.

Hardly any doctors besides obstetricians attended the event, but large numbers of nurses and social workers came, and they acknowledged the problem, Dr. Ana María Andia, the director of Mendoza s Reproductive Health programme, who organised the workshop in her district, told IPS.

Hospital doctors have a greater resistance to training and this sort of event, as opposed to family doctors, who have more personal contact with their patients and a greater commitment to their practice, she said.

Andia explained that in Mendoza, one of the most advanced provinces in terms of sexual and reproductive health, there are no serious complaints, but less obvious mistreatment does occur. One doctor, after seeing the dramatised version of the Santa Fe report, said This doesn t happen here, but some nurses immediately contradicted him, she said.

Scornful treatment of women who come to the emergency room after having an illegal abortion, or telling a woman in labour to control herself and not cry out when she is giving birth, are practices that are hard to eradicate unless there is a process of reflection about this kind of harsh behaviour that is accepted as normal, the experts said.

In Mendoza, dilation and curettage (D and C) to complete a home abortion has been done under anaesthetic for many years now, but we know that in other provinces it is still done without anaesthetic to punish the woman, so that she won t have another abortion, Andia said.

The testimonies in the Baring It All report tell of this practice. If they know that you tried to have an abortion, they do the D and C without anaesthesia, one of the women said.

Doctor Andia said that the purpose of these seminars, which are also to be held at maternity hospitals in Mendoza s outlying areas, is to empower women so that they are aware of and demand respect for their rights, and at the same time to invite healthcare professionals to reflect about their practices.

To bring together work of this kind being done in different parts of the country, at the end of October CLADEM is to launch an observatory on Health, Gender and Human Rights, which will incorporate the results of the seminars, research done in other provinces, and examples of best practice.

CLADEM s work and other research that has uncovered similar treatment for pregnant women will be available there. One study in the northwestern province of Tucumán revealed that in some health centres, women in labour even have to share beds.

Another study conducted in the city of Buenos Aires also revealed a very poor quality of patient care. The study indicated that being referred to as Mother was only the first of many far worse humiliations.

Mother, please shut up! a doctor shouted at a woman in the emergency room who was haemorrhaging and complaining of great pain, or Mother, what have you done? a woman doctor asked a patient who came into emergency suffering from the consequences of an incomplete abortion.

The observatory will be a virtual space where complaints can be voiced, but also where ways of improving the treatment of people can be learned, thus shedding those practices which violate human rights, Arminchiardi said.

Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, Nov 17 2006 (IPS) – Russian authorities are searching for new solutions to tackle alcoholism after reports started to emerge last month that thousands of people may have died from consumption of the popular home-made alcohol Samogon. Low-grade industrially manufactured alcohol may have gone into the drink, according to some reports.
New proposals range from reducing taxes on real vodka to stricter laws to control distribution of alcoholic beverages, and even to re-establishing Soviet style monopoly on all aspects of the industry.

It s not enough to ensure state monopoly on production and distribution of pure alcohol, State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov told Russian news agencies. I think it s also time to raise the issue of state monopoly on sale of products that contain alcohol.

According to Gryzlov more than 17,000 people were killed as a direct result of consuming spurious liquor and alcohol substitutes from January to early September this year. He did not specify the source of his information. Gryzlov said spurious alcohol claimed 30,000 lives in 2005. This year, the situation somewhat improved, he said, adding that the figure was still shocking.

Officials have acknowledged some lower figures. Since early September, 5,100 citizens were poisoned after drinking surrogate alcohol, and 295 of them died, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said in a report to the State Duma deputies.

Earlier in the year, Nurgaliyev called alcoholism a national tragedy, and urged a crackdown on spurious alcohol sales in the country. He said about 42,000 are killed or become disabled from alcohol poisoning every year.
The Interior Ministry in cooperation with the Sanitary and Epidemiological Control Agency (Sanepidemnadzor) is trying to locate the sources of illegal alcohol. Our investigators are working in 14 regions in Russia where the main facilities for the production of technical spirits are located, the minister said.

>From mid-September through the end of October this year, 530 people poisoned by illegally sold alcohol were hospitalised in the Pskov region, a few hundred kilometres north-west of Moscow. Of those, 326 were men and 204 women, according to the Federal Consumer Protection Service.

Gennady Onishchenko who heads the Federal Consumer Protection Service told Prime-Tass news agency that the recent wave of alcohol related health problems was a coordinated campaign by bootleggers to disrupt efforts of law enforcement agencies to crack down on sale of illegal alcohol.

He called for punishment of bootleggers who knowingly sell tainted alcohol. Onishchenko suggested that all spirits should be taxed so that liquids for bonfires and cleaning carpets would no longer be significantly cheaper than legally produced alcohol beverages.

This would eliminate the economic incentive to produce all these distillates and to poison the country s population with them, he said. Take, for example, a liquid intended to spark a campfire. People in low-income groups don t use it to spark fire but just drink it. The people who are getting poisoned have below-average incomes and most of them are alcoholics, and will keep on drinking, he said.

Health and social development minister Mikhail Zurabov says numerous cases have been uncovered where victims appear to have drunk alcohol-based detergents and other lethal chemicals distributed in vodka bottles.

We need to take steps to arrest this trend by all means possible, State Duma health committee deputy chairman Nikolay Gerasimenko told IPS.

It s very simple, the frequent use of fake products is on the rise. Many alcohol producers have ignored standard manufacturing requirements or rules, and they are using hazardous substances these days which is now killing innocent people, he said.

Scientists in narcology have prepared a major report analysing the alcoholism problem in Russia, Gerasimenko added. A law requiring changes in the composition of industrial alcohol came into force Jul. 1, he said. But that seems to have done little to reduce the deaths.

Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov had held three of his juniors responsible for cases of poisoning. Andrey Sharonov, deputy economic development and trade minister, Igor Rudenay, deputy agriculture minister, and Sergey Shatalov, deputy finance minister helped implement a centralised computer system in January that tracks all registered alcohol beverages with new labels.

The system malfunctioned, leaving millions of bottles in storage awaiting new labels, and allowing counterfeit alcohol to reach the market place. The malfunctioning has also led to losses of roughly 1.5 billion dollars in sales and 262 million dollars in tax revenues.

T V Padma

YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia, Dec 17 2006 (IPS) – Every year over half-a-million people die in Asia from breathing air loaded with pollutants that are far in excess of World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines for air quality, experts warn.
The premature deaths in Asia account for half of all deaths caused by air dirtied by industrial activity and vehicular emissions said Michal Kryzanoski, regional advisor of air quality and health at WHO, warned at an international workshop on air quality which ended in this tourist city on Friday. The main aerial pollutants that Asians are exposed to are sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, carbon monoxide, and particles such as soot and dust.

Of special concern are China, where levels of soot or black carbon released by its industries continue to remain high, and India, which may emerge as a hotspot for ozone pollution in the coming decades, Surabi Menon, scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in the United States, told IPS.

Ozone found in the upper air layer called stratosphere is the good ozone that blocks harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun, which damage skin and eyes, from reaching the earth. But ozone found in lower layers, released by vehicle exhausts and aircraft emissions, is bad ozone that affects the eyes and skin and is the main component of the winter smog that chokes many parts of Asia.

In many Asian cities the average annual levels of coarse polluting particles, of sizes of 10 micrometers diameters (a micrometer is one-millionth of a metre), are more than three times the WHO guidelines.

The particles, which scientists call PM10, are about 70 micrograms per cubic metre of air compared to WHO guidelines of lower than 20 micrograms per cubic metres, says Kryzanoski. Reducing these pollutants could reduce deaths in polluted cities by as much as 15 percent every year, according to WHO estimates.
The evidence reviewed by WHO confirms the severity of the impacts of the pollution on health and calls for the immediate action to cut the population exposure to air pollutants the most common in Asian cities, says Kryazanoski.

An independent study of polluting particles in 20 key Asian cities, released by the Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI) at the conference, says air pollution still poses a threat to health and quality of life in many Asian cities. The study was released ahead of the first inter-governmental meeting of Asian countries on urban air quality.

The study rates the situation in major Asian cities Beijing, Dhaka, Hanoi, Jakarta, Kathmandu, Kolkata, New Delhi and Shanghai as serious , because the levels are twice the safety limits prescribed by WHO.

Kryzanoski warns that even if the guideline values were achieved, the possibility of adverse (health) effects remains.

Causing special concern is the massive and uncontrolled rise in Asia s transport sector, notably automobiles and two-wheelers. Vehicle fleets are doubling every five to seven years, according to Bindu Lohani, Asian Development Bank s regional and sustainable development department.

Asia s rapid motorisation is negating efforts to stabilise emissions. For example, concentrations of sulphur dioxide, the gas responsible for acid rain, have stabilised to a relatively low level, but high sulphur content in some countries is expected to increase emissions of the gas.

The rapid pace of Asia s motorisation is expected to raise emissions of nitrogen dioxide and fine particles with diameters of about 2.5 micrometers that scientists call PM 2.5. Fine particles are not exhaled by the lungs and tend to get absorbed by the lung tissue, causing breathing problems.

SEI cautions the transport sector is also expected to raise polluting ozone.

WHO has set three interim targets for a general phasing of activities. These are a first interim target of 70 micrograms per cubic metre, second target of 50, and third target of 30, followed by the final WHO target of 20 micrograms per cubic metre.

SEI s studies of major cities in Asia, which include Bangkok, Beijing, Colombo, Dhaka, Ho Chinh Min, Kathmandu, Kolkata, Mumbai New Delhi, Shanghai and Singapore, show that achieving even the first target of 70 is a challenge to some cities in Asia. Only Bangkok and Chiang Mai in Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Surabaya in Indonesia, meet this target.

Meeting the second target of 50 is a challenge to most Asian cities surveyed, with only Bangkok and Singapore having this capacity, and meeting the third target of 30 is a challenge to all cities in Asia.

A major problem confronting Asian officials is setting up air quality monitoring standards and having the financial and technical resources for it. Some countries like Thailand, Malaysia and India set up standards in 1980s but have not updated them since mid-90s. Others like Sri Lanka and Vietnam set up standards around 1995, and still others like Bangladesh and Indonesia in 1997-98.

But there are no air quality standards yet for Afghanistan, Bhutan, Lao or Pakistan.

With the exception of a few countries most Asian countries do not have immediate and clear plans to expand or upgrade existing air quality monitoring systems noted Elisea Gozun, head of the Asian Environment Compliance and Enforcement Network (AECEN) based in the Philippines.

In most cities surveyed by SEI, reliable emission inventories are either lacking, incomplete or contradictory , said Dieter Schwela, SEI s senior scientist based in York University.

Delegates at the conference pointed out that most Asian countries do not incorporate public health in transport policy and so impact on health systems are largely unknown. There are few case studies relating health and transport issues in Asia.

Similarly, integrated transport and land-use planning is weak. Non-motorised policy is often misguided and not seen as one of the solutions, delegates pointed out.

The spread of pollutants is acquiring trans-boundary dimensions. For example, delegates from Bangladesh complained that their country gets choked by polluting fumes from adjacent China and India, while smoke from forest fires in Indonesia spreads to neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore.

As the conference concluded, the participating nations pledged to improve their air quality through stricter emissions control, and setting up more air quality monitoring stations.

Anil Netto

PENANG, Malaysia, Feb 1 2007 (IPS) – Eyeing the expanding market for clinical research in the region, Malaysia is trying to position itself as an ideal place for pharmaceutical majors to conduct clinical trials. But critics worry about weak safeguards and poor enforceability of existing regulations.
Indeed, the local population s lack of sophistication about clinical trials appears to be one of the selling points.

In a brochure that encourages foreign biotechnology players to conduct clinical trials here, investPenang , the Penang state government s marketing arm, not only touts Malaysia s ethnically heterogeneous population, but actually brags that Malaysians are still drug naïve .

Since 2000, the number of Phase III clinical trials in Malaysia has more than doubled to reach around 50 in 2005. This is based on the number of applications received by the National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau for clinical trial import licences of unregistered products and excludes bio-equivalence studies.

This number could soar further if Malaysia signs a Free Trade Agreement with the United States for which negotiations are ongoing. A senior official from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reportedly pointed out last month that Jordan has conducted or is in the process of carrying out 35 clinical trials after it signed an FTA with the U.S.in 2000, compared to only one before that year.

Contract research organisations (CROs)in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are already eyeing market opportunities estimated to be worth 140 million US dollars in 2007.
Related IPS Articles

Meanwhile, the Science University of Malaysia (USM) in Penang is planning a 30 million ringgit (8.5 million dollar) building, which will also house incubation companies , especially those involved in biotechnology, at its proposed biotechnology park. Among the anchor tenants for the new building is a firm called Info Kinetics Sdn Bhd.

Info Kinetics bills itself as a one-stop CRO that handles clinical trials and bio-availability and bio-equivalence studies. Through a strategic alliance with Gleneagles Clinical Research Centre, which belongs to the largest network of private hospitals in the region, it has access to 100 hospital sites for conducting clinical trials in South-east Asia and beyond.

Info Kinetics carries out a range of clinical trials, including providing Viagra to children aged 1 16 suffering from pulmonary arterial hypertension (high pressure in the blood vessels to the lungs), a life-threatening condition. Viagra is said to lower blood pressure throughout the body including that in the lungs.

About a dozen children are believed to be involved in the ongoing trials, which are randomised and double-blind placebo controlled, according to the firm s website. A source familiar with the trials revealed that the side effects of Viagra on the subjects include bluish vision similar to the effect of (seeing through) a blue filter , depending on the dosage given.

When IPS contacted Gleneagles paediatrician Dr Sim Joo Seng, who is involved in the clinical trials, he declined to comment, saying he needed written authorisation from the ethics committee and permission from the sponsor before he could speak to the media about the trials.

The ethics committee he was referring to is probably the Joint Penang Independent Ethics Committee , a 14-member committee under the joint authority of the Penang Medical College and Gleneagles. This committee carries out ethical reviews of clinical trials conducted at the privately owned Gleneagles Medical Centre, Penang and the Penang Medical College, which is partly owned by the state-run Penang Development Corporation.

Whether it is really independent is debatable. Among the sponsors listed on the Info Kinetics website are big pharmaceutical firms such as Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline and Malaysia s Pharmaniaga.

When contacted, Associate Corporate Affairs Manager for Pfizer Malaysia Chin Yoon Ann was unable to confirm if such clinical trials on children were being carried out, saying that she had to check first . Another Pfizer spokeswoman, when contacted over the telephone, wanted e-mailed verification of identity before she would respond to questions about the firm s involvement in clinical trials.

It is not just the private sector that is involved in clinical trials. The Clinical Research Centre of the health ministry, based in Kuala Lumpur, serves clients from pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries, both public and private health care providers and medical research organisations . The Centre makes use of the health ministry s network of hospitals ( those with experienced and GCP certified investigators ) as investigative sites for clinical trials.

The Centre s head, in a presentation at the BioMalaysia 2006 conference in Kuala Lumpur in December, noted that in Malaysia there are no specific legal provisions addressing the conduct of Clinical Trial(s); only administrative provisions through Malaysia GCP (Good Clinical Practice) Guidelines .

These guidelines, among other things, state that in obtaining informed consent from subjects, investigators should adhere to the GCP and in the ethical principles that have their origin in the Declaration of Helsinki . All serious adverse events should be reported within two working days to the sponsor.

The guidelines add that those conducting the trials must also comply with the applicable regulatory requirements on the reporting of such reactions to the authorities and to the independent review board/independent ethics committee.

On the other hand, the National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau s website, provides the regulatory guidelines for the reporting of adverse drug reactions during clinical trials. All fatal and life-threatening, unexpected adverse drug reactions should be reported within seven days while other serious, unexpected reactions that are not fatal or life-threatening must be reported within 15 days.

The problem is that all these official guidelines are not binding and enforcement is lax, observed Dr T. Jayabalan, an advisor on health care issues for the Consumers Association of Penang, who has written on the ethics of large pharmaceutical firms conducting clinical trials in developing countries. They are merely good practices to follow, he told IPS. There is tremendous under-reporting of adverse drug reactions in the private sector. That is well known.

He said the procedures are cumbersome and bureaucratic, and very few would want to go through the hassle of reporting . In an article for Resurgence, a magazine published by the Penang-based Third World Network, Jayabalan noted that pharmaceutical firms can save 30 percent on the cost of conducting clinical trials in Asia compared to in the West. Relaxed or non-existent regulatory mechanisms also play a significant part in the choice of drug trial destinations.

Jayabalan added that the trend of outsourcing clinical trials to developing countries has raised concerns about large biotechnology and drug companies exploiting the healthy who are strapped for cash and the sick who seek cheap or free remedies.