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Russian ‘cannibal couple’ killed and eaten 30 people?

Agencies
September 27, 2017

Sept, 27: Investigators believe a Russian couple knocked their victims out with sedatives, then skinned them alive. Afterward, police say, they ate parts of their victims, froze the remains or packed them in jars filled with saline solution.

At times, the couple tried to turn soldiers at the military academy where they worked into unwitting cannibals, slipping "canned human meat" into their food.

And the people in the city of Krasnodar may never have known about any of that if not for a broken cellphone lying on a city street, authorities say.

City police have arrested the couple - Natalia Baksheeva and her husband, 35-year-old Dmitry Baksheev - who authorities say may be responsible for the death or disappearance of as many as 30 people in the city of 750,000 in the southwestern tip of Russia, about five hours from Sochi. So far, Baksheev has been charged with one count of murder, and the investigation is ongoing.

If all the killings are confirmed, the Russian couple would rank among the country's worst serial killers.

The investigation started on Sept. 11, according to the Moscow Times, when crews repairing a road found a discarded cellphone. It still worked, so they swiped through the photos.

What they found made them dash to the police station. On the phone were "photos of a man with different parts of a dismembered human body in his mouth," the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a statement.

Around the same time that investigators were poring over the phone, officers found the dismembered corpse of a 35-year-old woman near the state-run aviation academy where the couple lived, according to Vice News.

Investigators were able to determine the phone's owner via "special technical measures," and arrested Baksheev, according to a news release.

In police custody, he told authorities that he and his wife had practiced cannibalism at least 30 times in the past two decades, according to the BBC.

The investigation ballooned from there. The details are still spotty, but some have seeped out as the story has rocketed around the world.

The earliest potential killing, based on the time stamps of photos the couple had, dates back to 1999.
For years, the couple had been living at what the BBC called a "hostel accommodation" at the site of a military base in the city. One or both had at one point worked on the base, in the kitchen.

Investigators have not said how they believe the couple chose their victims, only how they rendered them unconscious - and what came after.

"In the place of residence of the suspects, the investigators discovered fragments of the human body in saline solution in the dormitory . . . Frozen meat parts of unknown origin were seized in the kitchen," investigators said, according to CBS News.

According to CNN, one police source said, "at the moment, law enforcement had discovered a glass jar with a canned hand."

Unofficially, officials have designated the pair the "cannibal couple," but they have not released many details about them.

Russian news stations released video of the police search, apparently from the couple's home.

The footage showed a messy, disheveled room, with trash, debris and clothes scattered on the floor and draped over furniture. There were also wigs on top of a small freezer and dozens of pictures on a bed.

The pictures were telling, Russian investigators said. One photograph is dated Dec. 28, 1999 and appears to show a dismembered human head on a serving plate with fruit.

Earlier this year, former Siberian policeman Mikhail Popkov - nicknamed "the werewolf of Siberia" for his brutal killings - confessed to killing 81 people.

According to The Washington Post, Popkov's victims ranged in age from 17 to 38. He started his spree as a police officer, offering women rides in his car, then taking them to remote locations and raping and killing them.

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News Network
February 5,2020

Feb 5: Pakistan will buy more palm oil from Malaysia, Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Tuesday, aiming to help offset lost sales after top buyer India put curbs on Malaysian imports last month amid a diplomatic row.

India imposed restrictions on refined palm oil imports and informally asked traders to stop buying from Malaysia, the world's biggest producer of the edible oil. Sources said the move was in retaliation for Malaysia's criticism of India's policy on Kashmir.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Tuesday that he discussed palm oil with Khan who was on a visit to Malaysia and that Pakistan had indicated it would import more from Malaysia.

"That's right, especially since we noticed India threatened Malaysia for supporting the Kashmir cause, threatened to cut palm oil imports," Khan told a joint news conference, referring to India's Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.

"Pakistan will do its best to compensate for that."

India is a Hindu-majority country while Malaysia and Pakistan are mainly Muslim. India and Pakistan have been mostly hostile to each other since the partition of British India in 1947, and have fought two of their three wars over competing territorial claims in Kashmir.

Pakistan may have bought around 135,000 tonnes of Malaysian palm oil last month, a record high, India-based dealers who track such shipments told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The figure is close to estimates of 141,500 tonnes from Refinitiv, which show sales to India in January may have plunged 80% from a year earlier to 40,400 tonnes.

Malaysia will release official export data on Monday.

Pakistan bought 1.1 million tonnes of palm oil from Malaysia last year, while India bought 4.4 million tonnes, according to the Malaysian Palm Oil Council.

Malaysian palm oil futures rose on Tuesday after Khan's comments and on expectations of a steep drop in production in January.

STRONG TIES

India has repeatedly objected to Mahathir speaking out against its move last year to strip Kashmir's autonomy and make it easier for non-Muslims from neighbouring Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan to gain citizenship.

At the news conference, Mahathir did not refer to Kashmir but Khan did.

"The way you, PM, have stood with us and spoken about this injustice going on, on behalf of Pakistan I really want to thank you," Khan said.

He also said he was sad he had been unable to attend a summit of Muslim leaders in Malaysia in December. Saudi Arabia did not attend the summit, saying it was the wrong forum to discuss matters affecting the world's Muslims and Khan belatedly pulled out.

Some Pakistani officials, unnamed because they were not authorised to speak to the media, said at the time that Khan pulled out under pressure from Saudi Arabia, a close ally, although local media reported his officials denied that was the reason for his absence.

"Unfortunately our friends, who are very close to Pakistan as well, felt that somehow the conference was going to divide the ummah," Khan said, using the Arabic word for the Muslim community but not mentioning Saudi Arabia by name.

"It is clearly a misconception, as that was not the purpose of the conference."

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News Network
April 28,2020

Washington, Apr 28: After nearly three weeks in an intensive care unit in Los Angeles, doctors treating 41-year-old Broadway actor Nick Cordero for COVID-19 were forced to amputate his right leg.

The flow of blood had been impeded by a blood clot: yet another dangerous complication of the disease that has been bubbling up in frontline reports from China, Europe and the United States.

To be sure, so-called "thrombotic events" occur for a variety of reasons among intensive care patients, but the rates among COVID-19 patients are far higher than would be otherwise expected.

"I have had 40-year-olds in my ICU who have clots in their fingers that look like they'll lose the finger, but there's no other reason to lose the finger than the virus," Shari Brosnahan, a critical care doctor at NYU Langone said.

One of these patients is suffering from a lack of blood flow to both feet and both hands, and she predicts an amputation may be necessary, or the blood vessels may get so damaged that an extremity could drop off by itself.

Blood clots aren't just dangerous for our limbs, but can make their way to the lungs, heart or brain, where they may cause lethal pulmonary embolisms, heart attacks, and strokes.

A recent paper from the Netherlands in the journal Thrombosis Research found that 31 percent of 184 patients suffered thrombotic complications, a figure that the researchers called "remarkably high" -- even if extreme consequences like amputation are rare.

Behnood Bikdeli, a doctor at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, assembled an international consortium of experts to study the issue. Their findings were published in the Journal of The American College of Cardiology.

The experts found the risks were so great that COVID-19 patients "may need to receive blood thinners, preventively, prophylactically," even before imaging tests are ordered, said Bikdeli.

What exactly is causing it? The reasons aren't fully understood, but he offered several possible explanations.

People with severe forms of COVID-19 often have underlying medical conditions like heart or lung disease -- which are themselves linked to higher rates of clotting.

Next, being in intensive care makes a person likelier to develop a clot because they are staying still for so long. That's why for example people are encouraged to stretch and move around on long haul flights.

It's also now clear the COVID-19 illness is associated with an abnormal immune reaction called "cytokine storm" -- and some research has indicated this too is linked to higher rates of clotting.

There could also be something about the virus itself that is causing coagulation, which has some precedent in other viral illnesses.

A paper in the journal The Lancet last week showed that the virus can infect the inner cell layer of organs and of blood vessels, called the endothelium. This, in theory, could interfere with the clotting process.

According to Brosnahan, while thinners like Heparin are effective in some patients, they don't work for all patients because the clots are at times too small.

"There are too many microclots," she said. "We're not sure exactly where they are."

Autopsies have in fact shown some people's lungs filled with hundreds of microclots.

The arrival of a new mystery however helps solve a slightly older one.

Cecilia Mirant-Borde, an intensive care doctor at a military veterans hospital in Manhattan, told AFP that lungs filled with microclots helped explain why ventilators work poorly for patients with low blood oxygen.

Earlier in the pandemic doctors were treating these patients according to protocols developed for acute respiratory distress syndrome, sometimes known as "wet lung."

But in some cases, "it's not because the lungs are occupied with water" -- rather, it's that the microclotting is blocking circulation and blood is leaving the lungs with less oxygen than it should.

It has just been a little under five months since the virus emerged in Wuhan, China, and researchers are learning more about its impact every day.

"While we react surprised, we shouldn't be as surprised as we were. Viruses tend to do weird things," said Brosnahan.

While the dizzying array of complications may seem daunting, "it's possible there'll be one or a couple of unifying mechanisms that describe how this damage happens," she said.

"It's possible it's all the same thing, and that there'll be the same solution."

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Agencies
August 7,2020

Russia boasts that it's about to become the first country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, with mass vaccinations planned as early as October using shots that are yet to complete clinical trials -- and scientists worldwide are sounding the alarm that the headlong rush could backfire.

Moscow sees a Sputnik-like propaganda victory, recalling the Soviet Union's launch of the world's first satellite in 1957.

But the experimental Covid-19 shots began first-in-human testing on a few dozen people less than two months ago, and there's no published scientific evidence yet backing Russia's late entry to the global vaccine race, much less explaining why it should be considered a front-runner.

“I'm worried that Russia is cutting corners so that the vaccine that will come out may be not just ineffective, but also unsafe,” said Lawrence Gostin, a global public health law expert at Georgetown University. “It doesn't work that way... Trials come first. That's really important.”

According to Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia's Direct Investment Fund that bankrolled the effort, a vaccine developed by the Gamaleya research institute in Moscow may be approved in days, before scientists complete what's called a Phase 3 study.

That final-stage study, usually involving tens of thousands of people, is the only way to prove if an experimental vaccine is safe and really works.

Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said members of “risk groups,” such as medical workers, may be offered the vaccine this month.

He didn't clarify whether they would be part of the Phase 3 study that is said to be completed after the vaccine receives “conditional approval.”

Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova promised to start “industrial production” in September, and Murashko said mass vaccination may begin as early as October.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease specialist, questioned the fast-track approach last week.

“I do hope that the Chinese and the Russians are actually testing a vaccine before they are administering the vaccine to anyone, because claims of having a vaccine ready to distribute before you do testing I think is problematic at best," he said.

Questions about this vaccine candidate come after the US, Britain and Canada last month accused Russia of using hackers to steal vaccine research from Western labs.

Delivering a vaccine first is a matter of national prestige for the Kremlin as it tries to assert the image of Russia as a global power capable of competing with the US and China.

The notion of being “the first in the world” dominated state news coverage of the effort, with government officials praising reports of the first-step testing.

In April, President Vladimir Putin ordered state officials to shorten the time of clinical trials for a variety of drugs, including potential coronavirus vaccines.

According to Russia's Association of Clinical Trials Organizations, the order set “an unattainable bar” for scientists who, as a result, "joined in on the mad race, hoping to please those at power.”

The association first raised concern in late May, when professor Alexander Gintsburg, head of the Gamaleya institute, said he and other researchers tried the vaccine on themselves.

The move was a “crude violation of the very foundations of clinical research, Russian law and universally accepted international regulations" the group said in an open letter to the government, urging scientists and health officials to adhere to clinical research standards.

But a month later, the Health Ministry authorized clinical trials of the Gamaleya product, with what appeared to be another ethical issue.

Human studies started June 17 among 76 volunteers. Half were injected with a vaccine in liquid form and the other half with a vaccine that came as soluble powder.

Some in the first half were recruited from the military, which raised concerns that servicemen may have been pressured to participate.

Some experts said their desire to perform well would affect the findings. “It's no coincidence media reports we see about the trials among the military said no one had any side effects, while the (other group) reported some," said Vasily Vlassov, a public health expert with Moscow's Higher School of Economics.

As the trials were declared completed and looming regulatory approval was announced last week, questions arose about the vaccine's safety and effectiveness.

Government assurances the drug produced the desired immune response and caused no significant side effects were hardly convincing without published scientific data describing the findings.

The World Health Organization said all vaccine candidates should go through full stages of testing before being rolled out.

“There are established practices and there are guidelines out,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said Tuesday.

“Between finding or having a clue of maybe having a vaccine that works, and having gone through all the stages, is a big difference.”

Offering an unsafe compound to medical workers on the front lines of the outbreak could make things worse, Georgetown's Gostin said, adding: “What if the vaccine started killing them or making them very ill?”

Vaccines that are not properly tested can cause harm in many ways — from a negative impact on health to creating a false sense of security or undermining trust in vaccinations, said Thomas Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

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