Sri Lanka donates eyes to the world

COLOMBO: At 10:25 a.m., a dark brown eye was removed from a man whose lids had closed for the last time. Five hours later, the orb was staring up at the ceiling from a stainless steel tray in an operating room with two blind patients — both waiting to give it a second life.

S.P.D. Siriwardana, 63, remained still under a white sheet as the surgeon delicately replaced the cornea that had gone bad in his right eye following a cataract surgery. Across the room, patient A.K. Premathilake, 32, waited for the sclera, the white of the eye, to provide precious stem cells and restore some vision after acid scalded his sight away on the job.

“The eye from this dead person was transplanted to my son,” said A.K. Admon Singho, who guided Premathilake through the hall after the surgery. “He’s dead, but he’s still alive. His eye can still see the world.”

This gift of sight is so common here, it’s become an unwritten symbol of pride and culture for Sri Lanka, an island of about 20 million people located off the southern coast of India. Despite recently emerging from a quarter century of civil war, the country is among the world’s largest cornea providers.

It donates about 3,000 corneas a year and has provided tissue to 57 countries over nearly a half century, with Pakistan receiving the biggest share, according to the nonprofit Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society. The organization began promoting eye donation decades ago, but has since faced allegations of mismanagement and poor quality standards.

The supply of corneas is so great in Sri Lanka that a new, state-of-the-art government eye bank opened last year, funded by Singapore donors. It has started collecting tissue from patients at one of the country’s largest hospitals, hoping to add an additional 2,000 corneas to those already shipped abroad annually. Nearly 900,000 people have also signed up to give their eyes in death through the Eye Donation Society’s longstanding eye bank.

“People ask me, ‘Can we donate our eyes while we are living? Because we have two eyes, can we donate one?’” said Dr. Sisira Liyanage, director of Sri Lanka’s National Eye Hospital in the capital, Colombo, where the new eye bank is based. “They are giving just because of the willingness to help others. They are not accepting anything.”

The desire to help transcends social and economic barriers. Prime ministers pass on their corneas here along with the poorest tea farmers. Many Sri Lankans, about 67 percent of whom are Buddhist, believe that surrendering their eyes at death completes an act of “dana,” or giving, which helps them be reincarnated into a better life.

It’s a concept that was first promoted a half century ago by the late Dr. Hudson Silva, who was frustrated by the massive shortage of corneas in his native Sri Lanka. Most eyes back then were harvested from the handful of prisoners hanged each year, leaving little hope for blind patients in need of transplants.

Silva wrote a newspaper piece in the late 1950s pledging to donate his own corneas and appealing to readers to also give “Life to a Dead Eye.” The response was overwhelming.

With no lab facilities or high-tech equipment, he and wife Irangani de Silva began harvesting eyes and storing them in their home refrigerator. They started the Eye Donation Society, and in 1964, the first cornea sent abroad was hand-carried in an ice-packed tea thermos aboard a flight to Singapore. Since then, 60,000 corneas have been donated.

While the Society’s eye bank was a pioneer, questions about quality emerged as international eye banking standards improved over the next 20 to 30 years. Concerns have recently been raised about less advanced screening for HIV and other diseases, and the eye bank has also faced allegations of mismanagement.

Many of its corneas are harvested from the homes of the dead in rural areas across the country, making auditing and quality assurance levels harder to maintain, said Dr. Donald Tan, medical director of Singapore National Eye Center, who helped set up the new eye bank. Once, he said, a blade of grass was found packaged with tissue requested for research.

Eye Donation Society manager Janath Matara Arachchi says the organization sends “only the good and healthy eyes” and has not received a complaint in 20 years. Arachchi said the organization checks for HIV, hepatitis and other sexually transmitted diseases by dipping a strip into blood samples and waiting to see if it changes color for a positive result. Sri Lanka’s Health Ministry also said it has received no complaints about the eye bank from other countries.

Medical director Dr. M.H.S. Cassim denied that anyone from the organization is making money off donations sent abroad. He said they charge up to $450 per cornea to cover operational costs and the high price of preservatives needed to store the tissue.

The cornea is the dome-shaped transparent part of the eye that covers the iris and pupil. It helps to focus entering light, but can become cloudy from disease or other damage. Corneas must be carefully extracted from donors to avoid damaging the thin layer of cells on the back that pump water away to keep it clear. They must be harvested within eight hours of death, and can today be preserved and stored in refrigeration for up to 14 days.

Sri Lanka has no official organ donation registry, as is provided in some countries when driver’s licenses are issued. Instead, the idea is passed down from generation to generation. Eye donation campaigns are organized at temples by Buddhist monks, but people of other faiths also give, including Hindus and Christians.

Future donors simply mail in the bottom half of a consent form distributed by Silva’s Eye Donation Society. The top portion, which looks like an award certificate with a fancy scroll lacing around it, is also filled out and often proudly displayed on the wall — serving as proof to the living that the pledge comes from a generous spirit.

“Just think if we had that level of organ donation and commitment and belief system in the United States, where we have these long lists of people waiting for hearts, livers and kidneys,” said Dr. Alfred Sommer of Johns Hopkins University, who spent more than 40 years fighting blindness in the developing world. “If we had that level of cultural investment, there would be no lists for organ transplants.”

The U.S. is the world’s biggest cornea provider, sending more than 16,000 corneas to other countries in 2010, according to the Eye Bank Association of America. But Sri Lanka, which is 15 times smaller, actually donates about triple that number of corneas per capita each year.

There is no waiting list for eye tissue in Sri Lanka, and its people get first access to free corneas. About 40,000 have been transplanted locally since the beginning, but that still leaves a surplus each year.

Pakistan, an Islamic country where followers are typically required to be buried with all parts intact, has received some 20,000 corneas since overseas donations began, Cassim said. Egypt and Japan are two other major recipients, receiving 8,000 and 6,000 corneas respectively to date, he said.

But Sri Lanka cannot meet global demand on its own. An estimated 10 million people — 9 out of 10 in poor countries — suffer worldwide from corneal blindness that could be helped by a transplant if tissue and trained surgeons were available, according to U.S.-based SightLife, an eye bank that partners with developing countries. It has been working with Sri Lanka’s new government facility.

“Sri Lanka has long been known to be a country with an incredible heart for eye donation and a willingness to share surplus corneas to restore sight around the world,” said SightLife president Monty Montoya. “While efforts have been made to share information with other countries, I am not aware of any one location being able to replicate Sri Lanka’s success.”

Where possible, eye tissue should be transplanted within hours of death. That was done in the Colombo operating room where patients Siriwardana and Premathilake were stitched up with what looked like tiny fishing hooks, then bandaged and helped outside.

For Premathilake — whose sight was lost when an open can of acid spilled onto his face while working at a rubber factory — this is his last hope. His right eye still blinks, but there is nothing but an empty pink cavity inside. The stem cells attached to his left eye should help create a new window of sight that he hopes will allow him to go back to work, or at least carry out daily tasks without depending on his parents.

“I am extremely happy,” he said. “I didn’t know the man who died in his previous life, but I’m always going to say blessings for him during his next births.” AGENCIES

Swiss freeze over $200M in bribe money: report

The money was reportedly intended to be given in suspected bribes intended for foreign officials since 2008.

The paper cites the federal prosecutors office as saying the funds were deposited in Swiss accounts by multinational companies for the purpose of bribing officials around the world to secure contracts. The report didn t name any individual companies.

An email to the prosecutors office Sunday was not immediately answered.

In the past, Switzerland was a popular place for multinational companies to “park” bribes due to its lax anti-corruption laws.

Since 2000, the country has tightened its legislation to conform with the requirements of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Ban condemns burning of the Quran, calls for tolerance

NEW YORK: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon on Tuesday condemned the recent burning of a copy of the Muslim holy book Quran in a U.S. church in Florida, adding that ” such actions cannot be condoned by any religion,” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters.

Ban issued the statement in a meeting on Tuesday with a group of ambassadors representing countries in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the spokesman said.

The secretary-general said “such actions contradict the efforts of the United Nations and many people around the world to promote tolerance, intercultural understanding and mutual respect between cultures and religions.”

Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center church in Gainesville, Florida, oversaw the burning of a copy of the Islamic holy book on March 20. The church had threatened to burn multiple copies of the Quran last year to mark the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Reiterating the UN high representative of the Alliance of Civilizations’ statement on the desecration of any holy text, Ban said “no religion tolerates the slaughter of innocent people.”

Meanwhile, protests erupted throughout Afghanistan following news of the Quran burning that resulted in deadly violence.

On April 1, protesters in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan overran a UN compound and killed seven international staff working with the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

Ban added that such an attack cannot be justified under any circumstance, the UN spokesman said. AGENCIES

Leaders battle for deal to boost OSCE powers

Leaders battle for deal to boost OSCE powers

(AFP) – 2 hours ago

ASTANA: OSCE member states were Thursday battling to thrash out a compromise on an action plan that would bolster the clout of the trans-Atlantic security group after its first summit in over a decade.

World leaders at the summit, hosted by Kazakhstan in its glitzy new capital Astana, have acknowledged the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)’s reactions to prevent conflicts in Europe and the ex-USSR have slowed in recent years.

But the 56 member state group operates by consensus, meaning any single country could torpedo a final communique and framework for action that diplomats hope will define its future role.

“I hope that in the remaining moments we can agree a declaration and overcome the differences,” Kazazkh President Nursultan Nazarbayev told the

Wikileaks down in Pakistan

WikiLeaks was launched in 2006 and it is run by Julian Assange. The basic work of this website is to publish official documents as original. Before publishing a document a special team verifies to check its reality. According to some information this organization has some links in different government departments and they provide secrete documents to this website. After a recent publication on this website interlope has issued a warrant against Julian Assange.

The new series of information publishing on WikiLeaks has created problem for different countries and it also created some misunderstandings between countries. United States of America is greatly affected by this website as it opened some hidden things against the world’s supper power.

It is blamed that Americans order for observing U.N. personnel’s telephones, emails, credit card details and frequent flyer numbers. According to Website State Hillary Rodham Clinton has order to observe the movements and meetings of U.N. personnel. White House condemns the blame by Wikileakes.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was also alleged by the website and it stated that King asked US to attack Iran to “cut off the head of the snake”. He also said that Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari is dirty man. King also said that Nawaz Sharif is dangerous, not dirty but Zardari is dirty, not dangerous. He also advice US to insert chips in prisoners of Guantanamo jail to monitor their activities. Wikileaks also claimed that people of Saudi Arabia are biggest investors of Al-Qaida network.

It was also claim by the website that Pakistan had rejected the US demand for nuclear inspection and reduction in nuclear fueling. Pakistan’s army Chief Ashfaq Perveiz Kayani is not willing to see Nawaz Sharif in power. He also showed his intentions to change President Asif Ali Zardari on Judges Restoration issue. Asfandyar Wali Khan, leader of the Awami National Party was under consideration for Presidential elections.

It is also published that Pakistan quietly approved drone attacks in Pakistan. Rehman Malik suggested that Predators attacks should be stopped until Bajoau operation but PM Gillani said that let it go on. He also said that after protest in Assemble every one will forget it.

Wikileaks has been banned in many countries ( PAKISTAN ALSO, AS SITE NOT OPENING NOW AT ANY INTERNET SERVICES PROVIDER) after having swear affects on different countries. US issued a statement in which it is assured that US has taken all countries in confidence that all published by Wikileaks is not in accordance with reality. Pakistan also condemns the website and said that Pakistan has strong relation with Saudi Arabia and it will continue.

PM Gilani leaves for two day tour of Tajikistan

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani left for a two day tour of Tajikistan on Wednesday.

The Prime Minister will attend a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) conference in Dushanbe. All SCO member country heads will attend the conference and Gilani will represent Pakistan.

Before his departure to Tajikistan, Gilani said while talking to media at the airport that Pakistan will try to get a permanent membership of SCO and would discuss the enhancement of economical and security cooperation with China and Russia.

He added that during his visit, Pakistan Steel Mills’ expansion plan will also be discussed with the Prime Minister of Russia. Trend Pk

US Congress must act on China trade policies: report

WASHINGTON: U.S. policymakers must use all available tools to address Chinese currency, trade and industrial policies that harm American interests, a congressional advisory body said on Wednesday.

The U.S. Congress should press the Treasury Department to label China a currency manipulator and encourage trade authorities to consult the World Trade Organization on Chinese export controls, procurement policies and subsidies, said the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

“China promotes industrial policies that manipulate trade rules to benefit domestic firms to the detriment of American and other foreign competitors,” the bipartisan commission said in its annual report to Congress.

“China protects many domestic industries through an increasingly restrictive investment regime and export restrictions,” it said.

In addition to suppressing

Partial strike against missing persons in Balochistan

Staff Report

QUETTA: Partial strike is being observed in most cities of Balochistan including Quetta against the missing persons Monday.

On the call of the Balochistan Student Organization (BSO) Azad, strike is being observed against the operation, kidnapping and missing persons of the province.

Most parts of Mastong, Kalat, Khuzdar, Mingochar, Noshki, Turbat and Gawadar are closed. Trend Pk

Dunya News torture case: FIR yet to be lodged

Even after 24 hours of torturing of Dunya News team by the LDA guards, police have failed to lodge an FIR while they also released the main character of the whole story, Major (R) Suhaib during the late hours of night.
Yesterdayc an LDA school teacher came to the LDA plaza with her reinstatement order issued by the honorable Lahore High Court but as soon as she reached LDA office she was tortured miserably by the guards. Upon covering the incident the guards also tortured Dunya News team, including producer, cameraman and driver. Not only this but they also snatched the camera from the cameraman and broke it completely. On this occasion the journalists handed over the incharge of the guards to the police but the police made lame excuses to lodge an FIR and till late at night they did not register the first investigation report of the incident. Even after the medical report of senior producer of Dunya News Taha Siddiqui which declares one of his ribs broken, the police are not prepared to register an FIR.
According to the police sources, the brother of the accused is a lawyer and the lawyers community threatened the police of coming with bailiff to get the accused released from the police custody, therefore the police could not lodge an FIR against Major Suhaib.
On the other hand LDA has taken its request for an FIR against Dunya News unconditionally in order to pressurize the organization.

Path to Haiti polls clouded as cholera spreads

PORTAUPRINCE: The death toll from Haiti’s spreading cholera epidemic topped 300 on Wednesday as fears over violence and fair voting clouded the path to elections next month which are seen as key to stability in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation.

Electoral officials still say the presidential and legislative polls will go ahead as scheduled on November 28, despite the cholera outbreak which has killed more than 300 people and sickened more than 4,700 since last week, triggering a major multinational treatment and prevention operation.

“On November 28, at 6 a.m., the polls will open,” Pierre-Louis Opont, director general of Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council, told Reuters. But one presidential candidate has said that if the epidemic of the deadly diarrhea disease reaches national proportions, the polls should be postponed.

The World Health Organization

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