Magic Statistics

And they may not know it until twenty or thirty years after their drug-using days are over.  The risk is so high that a US study recommended that everyone who has ever snorted cocaine or other drugs should be tested.

The Hepatitis C virus attacks the liver, but symptoms may not become apparent for decades after infection.  Some health professional fear an epidemic is only now coming to light.  Graham Foster, professor of hepatology at Queen Mary’s School of Medicine, University of London, warns that people who stopped snorting or injecting drugs years ago should know they are at risk.

“[P]eople who have put their risky behaviour behind them are not so easy to identify. Twenty years ago, they might have been clubbing, maybe injected once or twice, or shared snorting equipment. It’s these people we need to reach. They’re not aware that they might — potentially — have been carrying the virus in their body for decades.” Typically, with their risky ways behind them, these people have carried on drinking alcohol over the years. Unfortunately, nothing accelerates liver damage faster than alcohol.

According to the What Not to Share campaign, run by the Hepatitis C Trust, cocaine users are particularly at risk because the drug corrodes the inside of the nose, causing nosebleeds. Hepatitis C can be passed on to users who share banknotes or straws. You don’t need to see blood on a note for the virus to be transmitted, and it can live in dried blood for up to three months.

Treatment involves taking ribavarin pills daily and injecting oneself with interferon every week for up to a year.  Side effects can be debilitating for some.  The regimen is effective in just over half of cases.

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In 1894, Spillers Records, Cardiff, Wales, became the first store in the world to sell wax phonograph cylinders.  In later years, it sold phonographs and shellac phonograph discs.  Spillers today carries vinyl records alongside compact discs. Its days now appear numbered because a retail developer wants to construct a new department store and mall in downtown Cardiff.

Spillers, in the Hayes Market, is standing in the way of a £700 million property development that will bring a new department store complex to the Welsh capital.

The landlords have warned Spillers that they face a rent rise of 50 per cent. Lucrative high street chains such as Zara and Borders are expected to replace independent retailers.

Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers have joined a campaign to save the store.  An online petition has collected over 1400 signatures.  Owen John Thomas, Plaid Cymru shadow culture minister, has asked fellow members of the Welsh Assembly to support the shop’s survival.

All the verbal backing in the world will not pay the rent, however.

Nick Todd, the co-owner of Spillers, said: “The rent rise was a bombshell. We cannot sell enough records to cover that.”

It would be sad to see Spillers close but, unless Wales wants to stop retail development by declaring the shop a heritage site (or something like that), it sounds like this record’s over.

On 1 November, a newspaper in Azerbaijan published an article by Rafiq Taghi critical of Azerbaijanis’ way of life that included remarks about the prophet Mohammed.  After some Azeri Muslims voiced loud objections to the article, criminal charges were laid against the writer and the newspaper’s editor who were then sentenced to two months’ imprisonment for inciting religious intolerance.That penalty is not nearly severe enough to satisfy radical Azeri Muslims or the country’s southern neighbour, Iran.

For the past three weeks, residents of the village of Nardaran, close to Baku, have been demonstrating every Friday to demand severe punishment of Azerbaijani journalist Rafik Taghi, who is accused of having insulted the Prophet Mohammed in an article published by the little-known Azerbaijani newspaper, Senet.

The case of the journalist, who is now serving a two-month prison sentence, demonstrates that Islamic sentiment is strong in Azerbaijan and has complicated relations with Azerbaijan’s southern neighbour, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
. . .
“Last week we, the residents of Nardaran, condemned Rafik Taghi and the editor-in-chief of the newspaper”, said [local religious leader] Haji Ali, beginning his speech. “Our religion knows only one punishment for such people, which is execution. This is not our decision, this is what our holy book prescribes. The authorities sentenced the journalists to two weeks in custody. But that is not enough!”

Nardaran became famous after bloody clashes between its residents and police in 2002. . . . Since then, the village has become a stronghold for Shia Islamists opposed to the government. All walls on its narrow streets are covered with religious inscriptions, and locals are keen to vent their anger against the authorities in Baku.
. . .
Hajiaga Nuriev, one of the village’s elders and chairman of Azerbaijan’s Islamic Party, suggested Taghi was part of a wider conspiracy. “Both domestic and foreign forces have an interest in this,” he said. “We think that people such as Rafik Taghi are acting on behalf of international Zionism and Armenia, and they have deliberately damaged Azerbaijan’s credibility with its brothers-in-faith.

“In this situation, the residents of Nardaran could not have acted otherwise…to the enemies of Islam… who discredited Azerbaijan in the eyes of the world. This blasphemy ought to be punished.”

Iran has joined the row on the side of the Naradan Muslims.  The Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Fazel Lankarani announced a fatwa calling for the journalist's death.

The call on Muslims to murder Rafiq Tagi, who writes for Azerbaijan's Senet newspaper, echoes the Iranian fatwa against Indian writer Salman Rushdie.
. . .
The writings of Rafiq Tagi sparked recent demonstrations outside the Azerbaijani embassy in the Iranian capital, Teheran.

The Iranian media is reporting that Grand Ayatollah Lankarani's followers inside the republic of Azerbaijan wrote to him asking for advice about what they called "the apostate writer".

Yesterday it emerged that Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei earlier this week issued a veiled threat against Azeribaijan itself.  (Azerbaijan was part of Iran until Russia acquired it in the early 19th century.)

"We remind Baku's politicians that today the Islamic Republic of Iran is powerful enough to realize historical claims of the people," said Khamanei to a crowd of military commanders in Tehran, "We are now the major force in the region that even your master, the United States, fears."

"There is no need for us to enter into this matter ourselves. All that is required is that our religious leaders speak of moral duties of the people in northern Iran and with no assistance, they will punish you," continued Khamanie [sic] his threats of terror toward Azerbaijan's statesmen.

Is Iran using the uproar over Rafiq Taghi and the request for advice from the Muslims of Naradan to assert dominance over its small neighbour in order to take control of Azeribaijan’s oil resources?  Asia Times columnist Spengler predicted something just like that almost a year ago.

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The economies of BC and Alberta are booming while Ontario stagnates.  As well, population growth is surging out west.  Those two factors alone point to major political changes in the near future—perhaps a permanent new political reality for Canada.

To judge from the Liberal Party’s leadership race, however, the Liberals haven’t even noticed.  The party’s obsession with Quebec simply alienates Westerners, who have more pressing issues for the federal government to attend to.  Lawrence Martin of the Globe and Mail comments.

A backward way of thinking infuses the party. Liberals still seem to think Quebec is a big political prize — as it was in the Mulroney and Trudeau eras and before. In fact, it isn't. The Bloc Québécois has a base in Quebec that, as [former Liberal cabinet minister] Mr. [John] Manley was noting, guarantees the separatist party about half of the province's 75 seats. The Liberals and Conservatives divvy up the rest.

That means that British Columbia has about as much as Quebec to offer the Grits, as does Alberta, as does a combination of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The West, effectively, has three times as many winnable seats, and that number will grow with the next census.

"There are still many in Quebec and Ontario who don't get it," said Alberta's Anne McLellan, the former deputy prime minister, as she strolled the convention halls. "There are still too many resentful of the fact that power is moving west."

No issue typifies the Liberals’ anachronistic approach to Canadian politics more than the gun registry—no longer just a colossal boondoggle but a now proven failure to boot.  Western Canadians have by and large opposed the registry from day one, but it is still not on the Liberals’ agenda.  How many more billions must the government throw away before they realise another approach to fighting gun crime must be found?  Like, maybe, appointing judges who will enforce the laws we already have.

The Liberal Party of Canada is stuck in the past.  Until and unless it notices what’s happening in the western half of our country, it risks becoming increasingly irrelevant—no matter which candidate becomes leader.

For access to Mr Martin’s full column, click here.

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