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Police were searching for four gang members Monday after shots rang out amidst the crowds at Oslo’s popular waterfront complex Aker Brygge … police believe [this] was a clash between Oslo’s so-called “A” and “B” gangs.
Norwegian police are launching a crackdown on [the] gangs, vowing their members will be shadowed and cited for the most minor infractions. “Good,” say Kashiff Hamid and Gulshan Bashir … The two main “A” and “B” gangs are closely tied to the Pakistani community, the majority of which condemns their operations. “The gangs are stamping all Pakistanis as negative”.
It is hard to pretend you’re posing a threat to anything other than your own will to live when you’re surrounded by corporate logos at an event broadcast on the BBC and attended by ex-Big Brother housemates and the cast of Hollyoaks. What self-respecting teenager wouldn’t instead opt for an illegal rave, with its sense of outlaw cool and danger – offering not just drug-fuelled hedonism, but an attendant palaver involving the chance to run across motorways, trespass on private property and the occasional spot of light rioting?
We make an unannounced visit to China’s only retirement home for non-commissioned veterans of the Red Army. It is a Potemkin old people’s home. From an army of millions, fewer than 30 enjoy the comforts of this quiet residence … Liu started her propaganda career in the 4th Army in 1933 and is still committed: ‘The whole purpose of our revolution was to achieve communism. That is what we fought for. In a communist state you can have anything you want and everyone is the same. We are not there yet.’
The VA runs the largest integrated health-care system in the [United States] … this government-managed health-care program–socialized medicine on a small scale–is beating the marketplace … Males 65 years and older receiving VA care had about a 40% lower risk of death than those enrolled in Medicare Advantage, whose care is provided through private health plans or HMOs … The VA’s cost per patient has remained steady during the past 10 years. The cost of private care has jumped about 40% in that same period … Congress has no plans to enlarge the scope of veterans’ health care … it’s becoming more and more “ideologically inconvenient for some to have such a stellar health-delivery system being run by the government”.
In Baghdad these days, not even the hospitals are safe. In growing numbers, sick and wounded Sunnis have been abducted from public hospitals operated by Iraq’s Shiite-run Health Ministry and later killed … the motive for the abductions appeared to be nothing more than religious affiliation. Because public hospitals here are controlled by Shiites, the killings have raised questions about whether hospital staff have allowed Shiite death squads into their facilities to slaughter Sunni Arabs.
