Shell-like mole removed from ‘Turtle Boy’

With all kinds of aberration happening to people everywhere, here is another one that has changed the life of a boy from being abnormal and pathetic to being normal and productive, thanks to a compassionate British doctor who performed the surgery.

This is about Didier Montalvo, a 6-year-old boy who earned the moniker ‘Turtle Boy’ in his native Columbia because of a shell-like mole that covered his back. The mole grew directly proportional to his body growth.

The doctors call this rare condition as Congenital Melanocytic Nevus (CMN).

Didier became the subject of ridicule to the extent that his family was even ostracized because superstitious neighbors thought that the boy’s condition was due to evil forces. The boy even suffered the ignominy of not having been baptized and not having been allowed to attend school.

The plight of Didier got to the attention of Dr. Neil Bulstrode, a plastic surgeon and an expert in treating patients with CMN, who wasted no time in flying to Columbia to help a team of surgeons remove Didier’s birthmark, which had grown so big that it was feared it could become malignant.

Didier today, a happy kid (Photo courtesy of U.K.'s Channel 4)

According to Dr. Bulstrode, “Didier’s was the worst case I had ever seen. Effectively three quarters of the circumference of his body was affected.”

Dr. Bulstrode is said to carry out about 40 CMN removals a year on patients at Great Ormond Street Hospital in the U.K.

Didier is now living a normal life and accepted in the society after a successful and free surgery, courtesy of the humanitarian effort of the British doctor.

China giving North Korea moral authority

 

After North Korea’s (NoKor) failed \rocket launch attempt, which was described by the United States as more of a disguised ballistic missile test, and condemned strongly by the UN Security Council and the international community, now comes China cuddling the shamed rogue hermit nation and praising the leadership of the young despot, Kim Jong-Un.China’s most senior official on foreign policy, Dai Bingguo, is not helping attain world peace by even vowing for closer ties with a nation that is spending more money for armaments at the expense of millions of poor and malnourished citizens.

What Bingguo did instead, to the consternation of world leaders and its peaceful neighbors in the region, is grant NoKor, a belligerent nation, the moral authority to continue oppressing its people, to keep on terrorizing its friendly neighbors and not to let-up making the world peace hostage with their menacing nuclear weapons testing.

“Under the leadership of Korean Workers’ Party First Secretary, comrade Kim Jong-Un, the North Korean Party, government and people will certainly make new achievements in the cause of building a strong and prosperous country,” Bingguo was quoted as saying during a meeting in Beijing with Kim Yong-Il, a visiting top official with North Korea’s ruling Korean Workers’ Party.

China is of course NoKor’s sole major ally and source of economic support. But that’s not all.
On a closer look, the State Department is said to have broached with China allegations that Beijing supplied North Korea with technology for its missile program.

The allegations were made last week by US Congressman Mike Turner, who cited an expert as saying a new missile launcher unveiled in a Pyongyang military parade was likely based on a Chinese design.
Today, China is scratching NoKor's back and propping it up. Tomorrow, China will start claiming its reward by participating in the harvest of NoKor’s natural resources.

You bet it's not all thank you for China.

ASEAN should be a force to reckon with

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a group of ten member countries that was organized to encourage political, economic, and social cooperation in the region for the good of each country and the welfare of their people.

According to ASEAN’s guiding document, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), there are six fundamental principles members have to adhere to and they are:

1) Mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity, and national identity of all nations.

2) The right of every State to lead its national existence free from external interference, subversion or coercion.

3) Non-interference in the internal affairs of one another.

4) Settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful manner.

5) Renunciation of the threat or use of force.

6) Effective cooperation among themselves.

From these fundamental principles one will immediately notice that the ASEAN is devoid of any military alliance. The organization is simply anchored on economic grounds.

Having said that, while member nations has respect for one another’s sovereignty, each member also demands that nations outside of their organization must also recognize their dominion over their lands and whatever else that belongs legally to them.

It is in this context that as the whole world is seeing how China is flexing its military muscles with impunity in the South China Sea or the West Philippine Sea, as the government has come to call it, specifically in areas where the Spratly group of islands (south of the Phl)and the Scarborough Shoal or Panatag Shoal (north of the Phl) are located, the Aquino government is asking the ASEAN to take a stand on the dispute with China over territorial claims as other member nations have also a stake in some parts of the contested region.

While we are claiming only that which the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) guarantees as within the 200 nautical miles Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), China’s argument, however, is that the whole of the West Philippine Sea is theirs on the basis of [its] nine-dash line claim, using a historical record.

China's historic nine-dash claim

The nine-dash claim is China’s delineation of its territory in the South China Sea, with nine dashes on the map that enclose all of the Spratly archipelago, parts of which are claimed by the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan.

But, how could, for instance, China include in its claim the Scarborough Shoal, a protrusion of reefs lying north of the Spratlys and only 120 km off Zambales province on the western coast of Luzon? How could it be theirs when it is even less than the 200 nautical miles EEZ as prescribed by UNCLOS when it talks about the country’s continental shelf?

If China is claiming a solid mass that close to our shore, what will stop China from claiming Palawan later on?  It is for this reason that the ASEAN, as a group of respected nations with equally respected and competent leaders, should come out supportive of our claim and united and forceful in condemning the aggression and expansionist role China is playing in the region of the South China Sea, for if it could happen to us, it could, without doubt, happen to them, too.

The Philippines is thankful for Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario for spearheading this move and for standing by his argument that ‘abiding by the rules set by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is the legitimate way of dealing with conflicting territorial claims in the disputed waters.’

ASEAN must show China that even without military alliance it remains a force to be reckoned with.