BEIJING — China kicked off mass vaccinations for swine flu Monday in Beijing, making it apparently the first nation in the world to start innoculating its population against the virus.

The Asian giant has been at the forefront of international efforts to produce an A(H1N1) influenza vaccine, with at least five companies receiving government approval for the work. Officials however have warned demand will exceed supply.

The capital's municipal health bureau announced Monday in a statement on its website that Beijing "took the lead in China in starting A(H1N1) flu vaccinations".

Authorities kicked off the programme by immunising students due to take part in next week's National Day celebrations, the statement said. Around 100,000 students are due to attend, according to recent state media reports.

"We believe that China is the first country in the world to start mass vaccinations for A(H1N1) flu," Vivian Tan, spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation in China, told AFP.

The health ministry has said it plans to vaccinate 65 million people, or five percent of the country's total population of 1.3 billion, before year's end.

A total of 500 medical workers in nearly 50 teams have been mobilised to go to schools across Beijing to give the students their shots, which are free and voluntary, the health bureau reported.

Apart from students taking part in festivities marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of communist China on Octob... Read more »

A young Programmer and his Project Manager board a train headed through
the mountains on its way to Wichita. They can find no place to sit
except for two seats right across the aisle from a young woman and her
grandmother. After a while, it is obvious that the young woman and the
young programmer are interested in each other, because they are giving
each other looks. Soon the train passes into a tunnel and it is pitch
black. There is a sound of a kiss followed by the sound of a slap.

When the train emerges from the tunnel, the four sit there without
saying a word. The grandmother is thinking to herself, “It was very
brash for that young man to kiss my granddaughter, but I’m glad she
slapped him.”

The Project manager is sitting there thinking, “I didn’t know the young
tech was brave enough to kiss the girl, but I sure wish she hadn’t
missed him when she slapped me!”

The Guardian newspaper of UK (www.guardian.co.uk)  has written an article predicting that former president Fredrick Chiluba will be found guilty and sentenced to jail in tomorrow.

The story is republished below:

Aformer president of Zambia faces jail tomorrow after an unprecedented criminal trial that should send a shiver down the spines of once untouchable autocrats in Africa.

A verdict is expected in the case against Frederick Chiluba, accused of “plundering the national economy” during his decade-long rule in the southern African state. He has already lost a civil court case that found he laundered around $50m (£30m) from his impoverished people to help fund lavish spending on designer clothes and shoes.

If, as expected, he is found guilty in Lusaka tomorrow on a criminal charge of stealing $500,000, Chiluba could face at least five years in jail. Legal experts believe the trial is the first of its kind in which an African leader has been prosecuted for corruption in his own country, and could set a precedent for bringing other so-called “big men” to justice.

“Today’s dictator could be tomorrow’s defendant,” said Michael Sulliv... Read more »