Burma Cyclone - killing thousands and causing widespread damage

Cyclone Nargis swept into Burma on Saturday 3 May 2008, killing thousands and causing widespread damage.

Nasa satellite images below vividly demonstrate the scale of the impact. The top image was taken before the cyclone hit, with land and water features sharply defined. The lower image shows the aftermath on 5 May, with much of the Irrawaddy river delta region clearly flooded.

Use the tick box above the top image to see the path of the cyclone overlaid on the images. Yangon is another name for the capital of Burma, Rangoon.

The PDF document on the right is a UN map showing the flooded areas in more detail with extra information including the main population centres affected.

BBC News.

Trapped in a lift for 41 hours

Tutorial centre accused of trying to 'con' exam students

The exams authority reported a tutorial centre to "a law enforcement agency" yesterday over allegations that the centre tried to "con" students after gaining improper access to an English-language exam paper last week.

The development came as the tutorial centre alleged by Chinese-language media to be involved, Xiandai College, denied any connection to the case but suspended all classes taught by the celebrity tutor accused of being at the centre of the claims.

The allegations centre around complaints that a tutorial centre had offered an "extended learning" mobile phone service related to the Certificate of Education Examinations English language paper 1A - a test of students' reading ability.

The alleged service involved sending students text messages explaining the content of the exam after it had finished, claiming it would "help candidates gain a deeper understanding of paper 1B", the writing paper. The two exams were held on Friday, with a 45-minute break between the two.

The Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority first confirmed it was looking into the case in a statement posted on its website late on Tuesday night.

"The incident could indicate that the related organisation got hold of a copy of the question paper through an improper channel before the exam was over and used this to profit from and cheat students," it said.

According to the authority's regulations, students and exam supervisors are banned from removing question papers from exam halls until the exam is over. However, the statement added that although the topics of the two papers were "similar", the second was not directly related to the first and "candidates would not gain any advantage because of this service". A spokeswoman confirmed yesterday the matter was now in the hands of the authorities, but declined to confirm whether it was being dealt with by the police or the Independent Commission Against Corruption, and refused to name the tutorial centre.

"As this case has been passed to a law enforcement agency, we will not make further comment," she said. "We wish to have a clear investigation of this case and so feel it would be more appropriate for them [the law enforcement agency] to investigate this than for us to look into it."

Xiandai College, meanwhile, held a press conference yesterday to deny any involvement.

Although the tutoring chain said it would "initially trust" the tutor at the centre of the row - Karson Oten Fan Kar-no - it had temporarily suspended its working relations with him until he could provide an explanation.

Lee Wai-lok, executive director of the chain, said the school had not terminated Mr Fan's contract and explained the temporary suspension was just to avoid the public losing confidence in Xiandai due to the controversy.

"Because the Form Five and Form Seven courses are finished, the number of students involved is not so much," Mr Lee said.

Mr Fan did not attend the press conference, but the centre issued a short statement on his behalf. The statement stressed Xiandai College was not involved. It claimed media reports had not represented the "whole truth", but did not elaborate.

SCMP. May 8, 2008

Iron Man

Dictation

Names:
Michael, Maria, Linda

Common nouns:
community, domestic, director, welfare, housewife, hazard, consumer, bureau, environment, council, labelling, contamination, festival, border, checkpoint, symptom, stomach-ache, poverty, inflation, merchant, code, complaint, trap, science, technology, government, beef, meal, alternative, flavour, seasoning, quality, quantity, stall, distinction, flu, vegetable, assistance, bacteria, virus

Adjectives:
genetically-modified, frozen, steamed, shrinking, legal, Indian, fatal

Verbs:
Alert, commission,

Tree Man of Indonesia

Dede Koswara, who earned worldwide celebrity as the Tree Man of Java, would probably have died if he hadn't sought hospital treatment for the bark-like growths sprouting from his body, doctors have revealed.

The 37 year old entered an Indonesian hospital because of the huge tree-like growths that had encased his limbs for 20 years.

But an X-ray quickly revealed that the immune deficiency stopping him fighting the warts had also allowed a potentially deadly TB infection to take hold.

Dr Rachmat Dinata, leading the team treating Dede at the Hasan Sadikin Hospital in Bandung, West Java, said: "Five years from now, he would have been dead.

"He had lots of very active bacteria in his lungs. If he hadn't come here, and instead had lived his life as he had, with bad food and not enough of it, then the disease would have spread quickly."

However, intensive treatment has allowed Dede to beat the infection since arriving in hospital in January.

Dr Dinata said: "After three months treatment we have done an X-ray to check. His lungs are clear."

Dede's ordeal began when he was 15 and cut his knee in an accident. A small wart developed on his lower leg and spread uncontrollably.

"The warts began appearing everywhere," he told the Telegraph.

Eventually he had to give up work as a builder. His wife of ten years left him as it became impossible for him to support her and their two children.

Late last year, however, Dede's plight was highlighted on Telegraph.co.uk and in a Discovery Channel documentary.

The documentary team took American dermatology expert Dr Anthony Gaspari to Indonesia to see if he could find a cure.

Dr Gaspari, of the University of Maryland, is now liaising with the team treating Dede in Bandung.

He concluded Dede's affliction was caused by the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), a fairly common infection usually causing only small warts.

Dede, however, has an extremely rare immune system deficiency, leaving his body unable to contain the warts. The virus was able to "hijack the cellular machinery of his skin cells", ordering them to produce massive amounts of the substance causing tree-like growths known as "cutaneous horns".

Dr Dinata revealed the immune deficiency is so severe they have to be extremely wary of transmitting infections to Dede.

He said: "He is like an HIV patient, but he is negative. Because his immunity system is so weak, it's easy for other infections to enter his body. We have to be very careful around him if we have flu."

Four major operations have removed most of Dede's growths, including 4lbs of warty tissue from his feet alone. His hands are still massive clumps, but he can now use them for the first time in more than a decade.

He enjoys doing sudokos, but it can take him several days to complete one – not only are the puzzles challenging in themselves, the remaining growths on his hands still make it difficult for Dede to use a pen.

Dede has three more months of treatment to go before doctors think he will be fully cured, and is tentatively making plans for the future.

He told the Telegraph: "If all the growths are gone, I want to work again. If I had some seed money I would like to open a small business in my village, selling whatever I could."

He also laughed as he confirmed that he would also like to remarry.

"Yes I would like to get married again."

The Daily Telegraph, UK.