The State of Religious Freedom

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U.S. Agency releases Annual Report Rome, May 03, 2013 (Zenit.org) Father John Flynn, LC | 0 hits

On Tuesday the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its 2013 annual report.

The state of international religious freedom is increasingly dire due to the presence of forces that fuel instability. These forces include the rise of violent religious extremism coupled with the actions and inactions of governments, stated Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, USCIRFs Chair, on releasing the report.

The 2013 Annual Report recommends that the Secretary of State re-designate the following eight nations as countries of particular concern or CPCs: Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan. USCIRF finds that seven other countries meet the CPC threshold and should be so designated: Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam, the report explained.

The report covers the year ending on January 31, 2013. It noted that the State Department has issued waivers for Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan, thereby omitting any measures against those countries for their violations of religious freedom.

Moreover, there have been no new presidential actions, CPC designations, and the State Department has relied on pre-existing sanctions, the report stated.

Turning to some of the countries with particularly egregious violations of religious freedom USCIRF commented that with regard to Burma and the political reforms that have taken place, so far there is little progress in matters of faith. There continue to be severe restrictions on religious worship and education and religious groups still face many obstacles in their activities.

In China, the report commented that the government continues to perpetrate particularly severe violations of the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief.

Ongoing violations

Egypt, Eritrea, and Iran also continue to severely violate religious freedom. Regarding Iran the report said that: The government of Iran continues to engage in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention, torture, and executions based primarily or entirely upon the religion of the accused.

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The State of Religious Freedom

Russia does poorly in freedom-of-press rankings

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MOSCOW, May 3 (UPI) -- Russia ranked low in three media watchdog evaluations released Friday to mark World Press Freedom Day.

Reporters Without Borders, based in Paris, placed Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Predators of Freedom of Information index.

The report called the president a "control freak," who oppresses the country's grassroots movement behind anti-Kremlin protests, RIA Novosti reported. On the list with Putin are Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Italian Mafia and the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.

The Impunity Index by New York's Committee to Protect Journalists ranked Russia ninth.

The report criticized Russia for having 14 unsolved journalist murders since 2003. It gave praise to Russia, though, for "a general decline in deadly anti-press violence and a handful of partly successful prosecutions in journalist murders."

Russia moved from 176th to 197th on the Freedom of the Press ratings by Freedom House, a non-governmental organization in the United States. The report included Russia in the "non-free" group of countries for its control of television channels and regulations on NGOs and slander in the media.

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Russia does poorly in freedom-of-press rankings

SynCardia's Freedom® Portable Driver Selected as Silver Winner at Edison Awards

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TUCSON, Ariz., May 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --SynCardia Systems, Inc. (www.syncardia.com), manufacturer of the world's first and only FDA, Health Canada and CE (Europe) approved Total Artificial Heart, announced today that its Freedom portable driver, the world's first wearable power supply for the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart, was named the 2013 Silver Winner amongst Assistive Devices in the Science/Medical category of the Edison Awards on April 25 in Chicago.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130502/LA06150)

"The awards demonstrate the incredible range and pace of innovation globally and across a wide variety of industries," said Frank Bonafilia, executive director of the Edison Awards. "It is important that such excellence in innovation be widely recognized and done so in the spirit of the world's greatest inventor."

Weighing 13.5 pounds, the Freedom portable driver allows stable Total Artificial Heart patients who meet discharge criteria to wait for a matching donor heart at home and in their communities instead of in the hospital. To date, the Freedom portable driver has supported 130 patients worldwide, accounting for more than 55 patient years of support.

The Edison Awards have been recognizing and honoring the best in innovations and innovators since 1987. The awards honor game-changing innovations that are at the forefront of new product and service development, marketing and human-centered design, and are one of the highest accolades a company can receive in the name of successful innovation.

Winners were judged by a panel of more than 3,000 peers, including business executives, past winners, academics and leaders in the fields of product development, design, engineering, science and medicine. Sponsors of the 2013 Edison Awards included Nielsen, Discovery Communications, McAndrews Held & Malloy, Science Channel and USA Today.

The Freedom portable driver is CE approved for use in Europe and undergoing an FDA-approved Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) clinical study in the U.S.

CAUTION The Freedom portable driver is an investigational device, limited by United States law to investigational use.

About the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial HeartSynCardia Systems, Inc. (Tucson, AZ) is the privately-held manufacturer of the world's first and only FDA, Health Canada and CE approved Total Artificial Heart. Originally used as a permanent replacement heart, the SynCardia Total Artificial Heart is currently approved as a bridge to transplant for people suffering from end-stage heart failure affecting both sides of the heart (biventricular failure). There have been more than 1,100 implants of the Total Artificial Heart, accounting for more than 300 patient years of life.

Similar to a heart transplant, the SynCardia Total Artificial Heart replaces both failing heart ventricles and the four heart valves, eliminating the symptoms and source of end-stage biventricular failure. Unlike a donor heart, the Total Artificial Heart is immediately available at SynCardia Certified Centers. It is the only device that provides immediate, safe blood flow of up to 9.5 liters per minute through each ventricle. This high volume of safe blood flow helps speed the recovery of vital organs, helping make the patient a better transplant candidate.

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SynCardia's Freedom® Portable Driver Selected as Silver Winner at Edison Awards

Bloggers on World Press Freedom Day

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3 May 2013 Last updated at 03:14 ET

World Press Freedom Day celebrates its 20th anniversary on Friday. It was first officially proclaimed during the UN General Assembly in 1993.

The theme for 2013 is Safe to Speak: Securing Freedom of Expression in All Media, a focus that includes securing a free and open internet.

Here bloggers from across the globe reflect on their work in the light of press freedom day.

Juanita Leon is a journalist and writer who blogs for the news website she founded - La Silla Vacia (The Empty Chair).

I have a blog about politics in Colombia. I blog because I like the freedom provided by the internet to investigate and write what you find, without having to work for someone else.

In many areas of Colombia press freedom is still just an aspiration

I care about public issues in Colombia, and specifically how power is exercised. Why? Because I think that part of having power in Colombia means that you can choose what is said about you - and what is kept secret. I want to break that.

We haven't really found a commercial business model for bloggers in Colombia yet, and still depend in great part on international co-operation. But we feel we have had the freedom to tell everything we know, which is great.

I wouldn't say that it is a privilege that every Colombian has. In Bogota we are a lot more protected. In many areas of Colombia still under the control of illegal groups or under the intimidation of corrupt politicians or armed officials, press freedom is still just an aspiration.

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Bloggers on World Press Freedom Day

3D printer spits out CYBORG EAR… but where will you PUT it?

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Princeton's finest boffins have managed to print out an ear, and it's not just a simple prosthetic, it's actually an enhancement with a radio antenna built in.

The process of combining electrical circuits with flesh is fraught with difficulties, and building ears is a common challenge given the complexity of shape and their propensity to become torn off or damaged. So the team at Princeton University attempted to solve both problems by using a 3D printer to create a pair of ears and embedded a radio antenna for good measure.

Now look ear ... the cyborg body part

Creating organs normally involves building a scaffold and letting the cells grow over it, but humans ears are too complex for that to be effective and there's no opportunity to embed electronics either. So the team used a modified Fab@Home printer to deposit layers of cells (derived from calves) and silicon. The latter was infused with nano-particles of silver to create the conductive antenna, which was tested receiving radio frequencies from 1MHz right up to 5GHz. That's not even the impressive bit.

"Biological structures are soft and squishy, composed mostly of water and organic molecules, while conventional electronic devices are hard and dry," explains one of the paper's authors, "The differences ... could not be any more pronounced."

The ears weren't just printed out and tested for sound and radio reception, they were also compared to bits of dog bone for strength and regularly tested over 10 weeks to ensure they remained biologically viable, which they did.

The full paper (PDF, requires registration but surprisingly readable) goes into a good deal more detail on the testing, as well as pointing out the potential of the technique to embed sensors in replacement body parts of all kinds.

Not that this will be happening imminently, even if one had an ear with an integrated radio antenna there's nowhere on the human head for it to be plugged in. The exposed wires in this prototype could be tied into a nerve or two, but would still require a radio circuit to be useful, and even then the potential is limited.

But the ability to combine electrical and biological stuff is interesting for all sorts of reasons, and certainly demonstrates that 3D printing has more interesting applications than malformed novelties and copyright abuse.

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3D printer spits out CYBORG EAR... but where will you PUT it?

Cris Cyborg, Ronda Rousey, and the magic numbers that add up to a superfight

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Back in the fall of 2012, Mike Dolce flew out to Southern California to meet with Cris Cyborg. At the time, the former Strikeforce featherweight champion was preparing to return from a one-year suspension for a positive steroids test, and looking forward to turning the page. Her future, though, was cloudy. While her longtime promotion was about to fold into the UFC, and UFC president Dana White announced a women's division would be included, the competition would be limited to 135-pounders. That was a weight that Cyborg had never approached in her career.

For two hours over dinner, Cyborg and Dolce discussed the possibility of her making that magic number. At the time, Cyborg was not training much, and weighed 168 pounds. While Dolce queried her about her dieting and workout habits, she laid out her reservations about the major downward shift.

After years of helping athletes achieve their fitness goals, Dolce didn't require much time to assess things. From what he heard and saw, he was confident in telling her she could easily make the weight, which would set up a superfight with bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey. By the time Dolce and Cyborg shook hands and parted, Dolce believed they were on the same page. Cyborg told him she would just have to speak to her management. But as time passed, a follow-up call from Cyborg or her Primetime 360 advisors never came, according to Dolce.

Instead, the next time he heard his name in connection with Cyborg, it was in the media, with Primetime 360's Tito Ortiz saying it was impossible for Cyborg to make 135 pounds. At that announcement, Dolce could only scratch his head.

"As a professional, I stand on my resume," Dolce told MMA Fighting. "If she had done the things necessary in November, December and January, it would have been easy for her to make 135 in February."

While that number was at the center of most conversations in the media regarding the inability to make the Cyborg-Rousey fight, it was not the deal-breaker it's been reported to be.

During the ongoing negotiations, which lingered for about two months, the promotion agreed to pay for the services of a dieting and nutrition consultant like Dolce. But there were other points that the two sides could not agree on.

The biggest issue, according to Cyborg's management firm Primetime 360, was Zuffa treating Cyborg as a bit player rather than an event co-star.

"Every pay-per-view megafight requires two participants, and they weren't giving Cris her just credit," Primetime 360 partner George Prajin told MMA Fighting. "They were compensating Ronda like she was the only attraction of the fight."

Despite several public statements by Cyborg and Ortiz that Cyborg could not make 135, as well as a failed practice cut led by Ortiz, Prajin told MMA Fighting that Cyborg would have attempted the drop to 135 if the sides struck a deal, but a contract fell apart for two reasons. First, the money was not right. And second, she was only interested in a short-term agreement.

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Cris Cyborg, Ronda Rousey, and the magic numbers that add up to a superfight