HELP! Creating a Diabetes Awareness Campaign

The Rotary Club of Salmaniya are creating a campaign for diabetes awareness. Part of this campaign will be in the form of video testimonials of people who have been affected by diabetes, both directly or indirectly and how diabetes has impacted their lives. Gulf Broadcast will be producing these videos.We need real people to give personal testimonials about how knowledge of preventing diabetes could have changed their lives. These short testimonials shall be in Arabic. The main message will be diabetes is preventable and bad consequences do not need to happen. Do you know of anyone who could be on camera to help others realize the benefits of early intervention? Someone who is:

A young mother who has lost a parent to diabetes before a child was born such that the child will never meet their grandparent?
A teenager who may have lost another family member (parent/sibling) to diabetes?
A teenager/person in 20s diagnosed with type 2 DM?
A person who has lost their sight due to diabetes?
An amputee due to diabetes?

If you do, please do contact me by email or fill in the form. We and your community will for ever be in your debt. The first phase of fighting any disease is awareness and your help with this will go a long way to help us help others.

Oh the hard life!

George, tired, just after a full night of rest :)

This is just too cute not to share here. This is
George, tired again after just waking up this morning!

Have a great, energy filled morning my friends

Unneeded Escalation

I don’t write as often here not because the absence of rich material to blog about, but after so many years of doing so, I feel that I’m now seriously in a “broken record” mode. I feel that I’ve written about so many similar situations over the past ten years and have given the same advice and held on to the same hope that things will change for the better. Soon. Only to be disappointed time and again.

Here’s a clear example. What I warned against has not only become reality, but has all the hallmarks of escalating and actually becoming the norm:

4 Policemen Injured in Home-made Bomb Blast in Bahrain

At least four policemen were injured on Saturday in a bomb attack in a Bahraini Shiite neighborhood, the country’s Interior Ministry said.

It is the third attack targeting policemen in less than a month, according to the ministry.

“Four policemen were injured, one of them was in critical condition, in a terror blast in Bani Jamra,” said the ministry.

Last month, five policemen were injured after a home-made bomb exploded near the Sitra police station ahead of the F1 Grand Prix 2012 in Bahrain.

On April 9, three policemen sustained serious injuries after a bomb made with petrol exploded in East Eker, close to Sitra.

The country also witnessed armed robberies targeting money exchange recently.

At least two cases have been registered as masked gunmen entered money exchange outlets in Riffa and Salmabad and took over 25,000 BD (about 66,300 U.S. dollars).

On April 29, a gym owned by Bahraini MP Osama Al Tamimi came under attack allegedly due to his outspoken criticism against the government. Police then found 30 bullets scattered around the gym, but no one was injured.

CRIEnglish.com

Need I say more?

I find it more satisfying and rewarding blogging about gardening instead of this crap.

Hearing the furious beating of the wings of Capital

Another day, another mindless attack on businesses in Bahrain, this time in Jiddhaffs.

I don’t give a damn what religion, sect, colour or sexual orientation of the criminals who’ve done this and other crimes against businesses. What I do care about is that this, much more than demonstrations and, dare I say it, burning tyres, are the things which scare businessmen and their capital to take flight. Let alone the complete discouragement of foreign direct investment in this country.

The onus is now on the police to actually catch these criminals and bring them to justice, not chase protestors and drown whole villages in tear gas and other assorted chemicals chased by bird shot and other miscellaneous weaponry.

Source: Al-Wasat – 24 April 2012

Why do most armed robberies happen in Riffa?

Riffa is the seat of power. It is the chosen home of the monarchy. It is one of those areas reserved for the chosen ones and part of the population are barred ownership for some unknown reason. One would be forgiven to think that it should be safe, don’t you think?

But no. Most, if not all armed robberies happen in Riffa!

Here’s the latest iteration. A gun slinger calmly walks into a money exchangers (it being owned by the wrongly beleaguered Jawad Business Group might, might, be a coincidence) points the gun at the cashier and demands (calmly) money, then some more, walks backwards and walks away with BD5,000 (about US$13,260) for his trouble. And all in the full view of security cameras recording all of his moves, his clothes and other identifying details. So it should be easy for the police to nab him, right? Especially if you consider their alacrity in catching de uddar crims.