Monday, January 3, 2011
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Jail for sex with teen hooker
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/Singapore/Story/STIStory_314629.html
By Elena Chong COURT CORRESPONDENT
A RENOVATION contractor was sentenced to 12 months' jail on Monday for paying $100 to an underaged prostitute for sex.
Tan Chye Hin, 55, pleaded guilty to getting the services of the 16-year-old China prostitute in a Geylang hotel on Aug 4.
The father of three is appealing against the sentence. His $12,000 bail was upped by another $6,000.
Last month, the pimp who abetted him in the offence, Wang Minjiang, 36, was similarly jailed 12 months by the High Court after the prosecution appealed against his original fine of $8,000.
Both Wang and his nephew, Wang Youyi, 31, had been fined for offences under the Women's Charter.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Karen Ang Aiping had sought at least 12 months' jail for Tan.
It was clear, she said, that the primary reason for introducing new laws in the Penal Code was to afford protection to a group of minors aged below 18 from sexual exploitation.
The Senior Minister of State (Home Affairs) Ho Peng Kee said in Parliament it was necessary for Singapore to close ranks with other countries around the world to prevent sexual exploitation of minors.
The DPP said earlier that the Wangs gave food and lodging to the the victim, now 17, and another 19-year-old China girl, who came to Singapore to work as prostitutes.
They took the two girls to a Geylang coffeeshop to wait for customers to approach them.
At times, the Wangs would help the girls in negotiating the charges for sex. Customers were charged $80 to $100 for each booking.
The two men tried to boost their business by telling people that the younger victim was only 17 years old.
On Aug 4, Minjiang received a call from Tan who said he wanted to have sex with the younger girl.
Tan came and took the victim to a nearby hotel where he paid $100 to her for sex. He could have been jailed for up to seven years and fined.
Third man also guilty
The third man involved in the commercial sex case for paying an underage prostitute for her services also pleaded guilty on Monday.
Rodney Sim Hang Nge, 61, an accountant, admitted to paying the 16-year-old girl, a Chinese national, $100 for sex at a hotel in Joo Chiat Road on Aug 3, and at another hotel two days later.
Last month Wang Minjiang, 36, became the first person to be jailed for 12 months for abetting Tan Chye Hin, 55, in commercial sex involving the same girl on Aug 4.
The High Court set aside his $8,000 fine and replaced it with a jail sentence, stating that 'a more rigorous sentence might be needed to discourage international prostitution involving persons the law regards as young and vulnerable''.
Tan, who pleaded guilty earlier in the same court and was sentenced to 12 months by District Judge Jeffrey Sim, is appealing against the sentence.
In Sim's case, Deputy Public Prosecutor Karen Ang Aiping said that the father of two was having coffee at a coffeeshop in Lorong 14 Geylang on the evening of Aug 3 when he saw the victim with Wang sitting at a table.
He smiled at the girl, who later signalled him over to her table.
When he asked how much she was charging for sex, Wang quoted $100.
Sim tried to bargain it down to $80 but was told by Wang that the girl had just arrived and was 'different'' from the other girls.
He agreed to pay her $100 for her services and drove her to the hotel in Joo Chiat where they had sex.
Two days later he contacted Wang and arranged to have sex again with the victim.
After sex, he bought her a pre-paid phone card and some fruit at her request. He also paid her $30.
His lawyer, Mr Shashi Nathan, will present a mitigation plea on his behalf on Jan 7.
By Elena Chong COURT CORRESPONDENT
A RENOVATION contractor was sentenced to 12 months' jail on Monday for paying $100 to an underaged prostitute for sex.
Tan Chye Hin, 55, pleaded guilty to getting the services of the 16-year-old China prostitute in a Geylang hotel on Aug 4.
The father of three is appealing against the sentence. His $12,000 bail was upped by another $6,000.
Last month, the pimp who abetted him in the offence, Wang Minjiang, 36, was similarly jailed 12 months by the High Court after the prosecution appealed against his original fine of $8,000.
Both Wang and his nephew, Wang Youyi, 31, had been fined for offences under the Women's Charter.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Karen Ang Aiping had sought at least 12 months' jail for Tan.
It was clear, she said, that the primary reason for introducing new laws in the Penal Code was to afford protection to a group of minors aged below 18 from sexual exploitation.
The Senior Minister of State (Home Affairs) Ho Peng Kee said in Parliament it was necessary for Singapore to close ranks with other countries around the world to prevent sexual exploitation of minors.
The DPP said earlier that the Wangs gave food and lodging to the the victim, now 17, and another 19-year-old China girl, who came to Singapore to work as prostitutes.
They took the two girls to a Geylang coffeeshop to wait for customers to approach them.
At times, the Wangs would help the girls in negotiating the charges for sex. Customers were charged $80 to $100 for each booking.
The two men tried to boost their business by telling people that the younger victim was only 17 years old.
On Aug 4, Minjiang received a call from Tan who said he wanted to have sex with the younger girl.
Tan came and took the victim to a nearby hotel where he paid $100 to her for sex. He could have been jailed for up to seven years and fined.
Third man also guilty
The third man involved in the commercial sex case for paying an underage prostitute for her services also pleaded guilty on Monday.
Rodney Sim Hang Nge, 61, an accountant, admitted to paying the 16-year-old girl, a Chinese national, $100 for sex at a hotel in Joo Chiat Road on Aug 3, and at another hotel two days later.
Last month Wang Minjiang, 36, became the first person to be jailed for 12 months for abetting Tan Chye Hin, 55, in commercial sex involving the same girl on Aug 4.
The High Court set aside his $8,000 fine and replaced it with a jail sentence, stating that 'a more rigorous sentence might be needed to discourage international prostitution involving persons the law regards as young and vulnerable''.
Tan, who pleaded guilty earlier in the same court and was sentenced to 12 months by District Judge Jeffrey Sim, is appealing against the sentence.
In Sim's case, Deputy Public Prosecutor Karen Ang Aiping said that the father of two was having coffee at a coffeeshop in Lorong 14 Geylang on the evening of Aug 3 when he saw the victim with Wang sitting at a table.
He smiled at the girl, who later signalled him over to her table.
When he asked how much she was charging for sex, Wang quoted $100.
Sim tried to bargain it down to $80 but was told by Wang that the girl had just arrived and was 'different'' from the other girls.
He agreed to pay her $100 for her services and drove her to the hotel in Joo Chiat where they had sex.
Two days later he contacted Wang and arranged to have sex again with the victim.
After sex, he bought her a pre-paid phone card and some fruit at her request. He also paid her $30.
His lawyer, Mr Shashi Nathan, will present a mitigation plea on his behalf on Jan 7.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Gene Therapy Shows Promise for Blocking HIV, Controlling AIDS
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-16/gene-therapy-shows-promise-for-blocking-hiv-controlling-aids-study-says.html
June 16 (Bloomberg) -- Two cutting-edge medical technologies, stem cell transplantation and gene therapy, were combined in an attack on the AIDS virus that may lead to new strategies for treating people infected with HIV.
Researchers at the City of Hope, a nonprofit research institute near Los Angeles, extracted stem cells from the blood of four people with AIDS-related lymphoma, a blood cancer, and modified some of them to carry anti-HIV genes. The altered cells were returned to the patients’ blood without harming them and remained there for two years, a sign that if given in greater number, they might be able to suppress the AIDS virus.
The results may help researchers hunting for ways to cure HIV patients or block the AIDS virus without putting people on toxic medicine for the rest of their lives. Potent antiviral drugs suppress the virus and allow those infected to live near- normal lives. Yet the medicines are unaffordable to millions in poor countries and cause side effects that may shorten the lives of people who use them.
“One of the problems with antiviral therapy is that it has almost led to the perception that HIV is cured and that’s not true,” said David Schaffer, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, who co-directs the school’s stem cell center. “If you could develop a therapy to make HIV-proof blood cells, then you could create a true cure for HIV. This is a very promising clinical trial that takes us in that direction.”
Schaffer, who was not involved in the research, wrote a commentary accompanying the study. Both were published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Current Treatments
More than 34 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and about 2 million lost their lives to AIDS in 2008, according to the World Health Organization, based in Geneva. Efforts to develop vaccines to prevent high- risk people from becoming infected have so far failed, leaving the drug cocktails made by companies led by Gilead Sciences Inc., based in Foster City, California, and London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc as the method of treating people with HIV.
The City of Hope research builds on an experiment reported last year by a German doctor, Gero Hutter, in the only known case of an AIDS patient being cured. The patient, who had AIDS and leukemia, was given a stem-cell transplant from a donor whose rare gene variant caused his immune cells to lack a receptor called CCR5. Without this receptor, HIV can’t infect immune cells.
New Blood
Hutter’s patient had his blood-forming stem cells wiped out and replaced by those of the donor. The transplant rebuilt his blood system and cured his leukemia. His immune cells also became resistant to HIV, allowing him to stop the antiviral drugs he’d been taking for 10 years.
Three years after the transplant, the patient still has no detectable HIV, Hutter said in a June 5 interview.
The City of Hope researchers extracted patients’ blood- forming stem cells, genetically modified some of them and infused them back into the patients after first wiping out their bone marrow and blood system.
The modified cells were altered using a harmless virus to carry three different gene sequences into them. This triple- therapy approach was modeled on drug cocktails that attack HIV in multiple ways to overcome drug resistance, study leader John Rossi said in a June 14 telephone interview.
One of the molecules cuts the CCR5 sequence in an effort to bar the door to a cell and keep HIV from entering, the second squires away a protein that the virus uses to replicate and the third knocks out a key piece of genetic machinery that HIV needs to maintain itself, Rossi said.
Multiple Attacks
“The idea is to hit multiple sites of the virus with different types of gene therapy so resistance to one doesn’t make it resist others,” Rossi said. “The three work better than any two together.”
The transplant procedure is risky and was only attempted on HIV patients who needed it to treat their cancer. All four patients remain free of their lymphoma about two years after the treatment, Rossi said.
The number of gene-modified cells returned to the patients in the study was too small to cure or even improve their HIV infections, Rossi said. The next step is to replace a much larger portion of a patient’s stem cells with gene-modified cells and see if they can substantially reduce their HIV level.
Rossi and his colleagues also are exploring ways to alter the transplant procedure to make it less toxic. That may allow the procedure to be used on HIV patients who don’t have cancer.
The research was funded in part by Benitec Ltd., a Melbourne, Australia-based biotechnology company that developed one of the gene therapy treatments used in the trial.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rob Waters in San Francisco at rwaters5@bloomberg.net.
June 16 (Bloomberg) -- Two cutting-edge medical technologies, stem cell transplantation and gene therapy, were combined in an attack on the AIDS virus that may lead to new strategies for treating people infected with HIV.
Researchers at the City of Hope, a nonprofit research institute near Los Angeles, extracted stem cells from the blood of four people with AIDS-related lymphoma, a blood cancer, and modified some of them to carry anti-HIV genes. The altered cells were returned to the patients’ blood without harming them and remained there for two years, a sign that if given in greater number, they might be able to suppress the AIDS virus.
The results may help researchers hunting for ways to cure HIV patients or block the AIDS virus without putting people on toxic medicine for the rest of their lives. Potent antiviral drugs suppress the virus and allow those infected to live near- normal lives. Yet the medicines are unaffordable to millions in poor countries and cause side effects that may shorten the lives of people who use them.
“One of the problems with antiviral therapy is that it has almost led to the perception that HIV is cured and that’s not true,” said David Schaffer, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, who co-directs the school’s stem cell center. “If you could develop a therapy to make HIV-proof blood cells, then you could create a true cure for HIV. This is a very promising clinical trial that takes us in that direction.”
Schaffer, who was not involved in the research, wrote a commentary accompanying the study. Both were published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Current Treatments
More than 34 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and about 2 million lost their lives to AIDS in 2008, according to the World Health Organization, based in Geneva. Efforts to develop vaccines to prevent high- risk people from becoming infected have so far failed, leaving the drug cocktails made by companies led by Gilead Sciences Inc., based in Foster City, California, and London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc as the method of treating people with HIV.
The City of Hope research builds on an experiment reported last year by a German doctor, Gero Hutter, in the only known case of an AIDS patient being cured. The patient, who had AIDS and leukemia, was given a stem-cell transplant from a donor whose rare gene variant caused his immune cells to lack a receptor called CCR5. Without this receptor, HIV can’t infect immune cells.
New Blood
Hutter’s patient had his blood-forming stem cells wiped out and replaced by those of the donor. The transplant rebuilt his blood system and cured his leukemia. His immune cells also became resistant to HIV, allowing him to stop the antiviral drugs he’d been taking for 10 years.
Three years after the transplant, the patient still has no detectable HIV, Hutter said in a June 5 interview.
The City of Hope researchers extracted patients’ blood- forming stem cells, genetically modified some of them and infused them back into the patients after first wiping out their bone marrow and blood system.
The modified cells were altered using a harmless virus to carry three different gene sequences into them. This triple- therapy approach was modeled on drug cocktails that attack HIV in multiple ways to overcome drug resistance, study leader John Rossi said in a June 14 telephone interview.
One of the molecules cuts the CCR5 sequence in an effort to bar the door to a cell and keep HIV from entering, the second squires away a protein that the virus uses to replicate and the third knocks out a key piece of genetic machinery that HIV needs to maintain itself, Rossi said.
Multiple Attacks
“The idea is to hit multiple sites of the virus with different types of gene therapy so resistance to one doesn’t make it resist others,” Rossi said. “The three work better than any two together.”
The transplant procedure is risky and was only attempted on HIV patients who needed it to treat their cancer. All four patients remain free of their lymphoma about two years after the treatment, Rossi said.
The number of gene-modified cells returned to the patients in the study was too small to cure or even improve their HIV infections, Rossi said. The next step is to replace a much larger portion of a patient’s stem cells with gene-modified cells and see if they can substantially reduce their HIV level.
Rossi and his colleagues also are exploring ways to alter the transplant procedure to make it less toxic. That may allow the procedure to be used on HIV patients who don’t have cancer.
The research was funded in part by Benitec Ltd., a Melbourne, Australia-based biotechnology company that developed one of the gene therapy treatments used in the trial.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rob Waters in San Francisco at rwaters5@bloomberg.net.
A breast massage to remove toxins
http://www.divaasia.com/article/10057
Can wearing a bra cause you to get cancer?
A 1995 study conducted on 4,700 women suggested that wearing tight bras for a longer period of time can increase your risk of breast cancer.
This is because the breasts have arteries, veins and lymphatic vessels which carry blood and waste matter. Any constriction on the lymphatic system which is passive (meaning it does not have an internal pressure to pump fluids around it), can close the tiny lymphatic vessels down, inhibiting lymph flow and lead to fluid accumulation.
According to Dr Kelvin Chua, medical director of Dr Kelvin Chua, the most effective form of breast massage, is the one which aids in draining and removing toxin.
The therapist pays special attention to the direction of the lymphatic drainage system, while the pressure and strokes are also very important as it must be applied with the right pressure in order to drain the toxins without stimulating the nipple that may then cause ductal production/secretion.
Dr Chua will first personally assess the condition of the breasts, before the therapy is administered by a female therapist. They are trained in delivering strokes based on Dr Vodder’s MLD massage to ensure that toxins are properly drained via the lymphatics.
A cream for lubrication is also used to enhance the flow and experience of the massage. Beginning with a general upper chest massage stroke to relieve tension, certain accupoints are then pressed and massaged to further relieve the tension of the pectoral muscles.
Next, the massage is generally done in an anti-clockwise motion to promote maximum lymphatic drainage. The strokes are done in a circular anti-clockwise motion, starting from the base of the breast.
An hour long session costs S$68 at the SkinLab Medical Spa, Wheelock Place.
by Cynthia Loh
Can wearing a bra cause you to get cancer?
A 1995 study conducted on 4,700 women suggested that wearing tight bras for a longer period of time can increase your risk of breast cancer.
This is because the breasts have arteries, veins and lymphatic vessels which carry blood and waste matter. Any constriction on the lymphatic system which is passive (meaning it does not have an internal pressure to pump fluids around it), can close the tiny lymphatic vessels down, inhibiting lymph flow and lead to fluid accumulation.
According to Dr Kelvin Chua, medical director of Dr Kelvin Chua, the most effective form of breast massage, is the one which aids in draining and removing toxin.
The therapist pays special attention to the direction of the lymphatic drainage system, while the pressure and strokes are also very important as it must be applied with the right pressure in order to drain the toxins without stimulating the nipple that may then cause ductal production/secretion.
Dr Chua will first personally assess the condition of the breasts, before the therapy is administered by a female therapist. They are trained in delivering strokes based on Dr Vodder’s MLD massage to ensure that toxins are properly drained via the lymphatics.
A cream for lubrication is also used to enhance the flow and experience of the massage. Beginning with a general upper chest massage stroke to relieve tension, certain accupoints are then pressed and massaged to further relieve the tension of the pectoral muscles.
Next, the massage is generally done in an anti-clockwise motion to promote maximum lymphatic drainage. The strokes are done in a circular anti-clockwise motion, starting from the base of the breast.
An hour long session costs S$68 at the SkinLab Medical Spa, Wheelock Place.
by Cynthia Loh
Porn in your mobile phone? It's an offence
http://thecourtroom.stomp.com.sg/stomp/courtroom/case_of_the_day/450936/porn_in_your_mobile_phone_its_an_offence.html
09 Sep 2010
SOURCE: The New Paper
Having obscene DVDs in your possession is an offence – people know that.
But what about having an obscene film in your mobile phone, laptop or iPad even? Answer: It is still an offence.
The court was told that Tan Hiap Hua, 49, had been taken to the lock-up at the Police Cantonment complex on Feb 10 this year as he was under investigation for other offences.
Police officer Wong Pang Wai was interviewing him then and took his mobile phone from him.
On checking Tan’s mobile phone, the officer found 38 obscene video clips on the phone and seized it.
The video clips were transferred to a CD-ROM and sent to the Board of Film Censors for analysis. The board later confirmed that the films were obscene.
Tan admitted to possessing the obscene films and acknowledged that he knew it was an offence.
In his mitigation, his lawyer, Mr Tan Hsuan Boon, said that Tan had downloaded the 38 obscene films from the Internet onto his mobile phone for his private viewing.
Tanwas sentenced to three months’ jail.
Primary concern – public
In sentencing, district judge Liew Thiam Leng said that the primary concern in sentencing for such cases was the protection of the public.
The type of sentence will depend on the circumstances, the quality, quantity and the nature of the films and whether there is any element of commercial gain.
Said the judge: “A non-custodial sentence is reserved for isolated offences where the number of films are small (usually less than 20), and it is for personal use, where there is no commercial element and the accused has pleaded guiltyand is a first offender.”
Tan was found with 38 such clips, which the court noted was a large number. And it was also unusual to store so many on a mobile phone for private viewing.
The court also noted that Tan had a long list of antecedents which included possession of obscene films, theft, cheating, housebreaking as well as a series of traffic offences.
Added the judge: “It is clear that the accused is still committing offences despite having gone through corrective training for five years.
“The court took into consideration that the accused had a total of 38 obscene films in his possession, as well as his previous antecedents.”
For possession of obscene films under the Film Act, Tan could have been fined upto $500 for each film and jailed six months.
Tanis appealing against his jail sentence.
09 Sep 2010
SOURCE: The New Paper
Having obscene DVDs in your possession is an offence – people know that.
But what about having an obscene film in your mobile phone, laptop or iPad even? Answer: It is still an offence.
The court was told that Tan Hiap Hua, 49, had been taken to the lock-up at the Police Cantonment complex on Feb 10 this year as he was under investigation for other offences.
Police officer Wong Pang Wai was interviewing him then and took his mobile phone from him.
On checking Tan’s mobile phone, the officer found 38 obscene video clips on the phone and seized it.
The video clips were transferred to a CD-ROM and sent to the Board of Film Censors for analysis. The board later confirmed that the films were obscene.
Tan admitted to possessing the obscene films and acknowledged that he knew it was an offence.
In his mitigation, his lawyer, Mr Tan Hsuan Boon, said that Tan had downloaded the 38 obscene films from the Internet onto his mobile phone for his private viewing.
Tanwas sentenced to three months’ jail.
Primary concern – public
In sentencing, district judge Liew Thiam Leng said that the primary concern in sentencing for such cases was the protection of the public.
The type of sentence will depend on the circumstances, the quality, quantity and the nature of the films and whether there is any element of commercial gain.
Said the judge: “A non-custodial sentence is reserved for isolated offences where the number of films are small (usually less than 20), and it is for personal use, where there is no commercial element and the accused has pleaded guiltyand is a first offender.”
Tan was found with 38 such clips, which the court noted was a large number. And it was also unusual to store so many on a mobile phone for private viewing.
The court also noted that Tan had a long list of antecedents which included possession of obscene films, theft, cheating, housebreaking as well as a series of traffic offences.
Added the judge: “It is clear that the accused is still committing offences despite having gone through corrective training for five years.
“The court took into consideration that the accused had a total of 38 obscene films in his possession, as well as his previous antecedents.”
For possession of obscene films under the Film Act, Tan could have been fined upto $500 for each film and jailed six months.
Tanis appealing against his jail sentence.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)