Tag Archives: Uganda

Are Street Children Being Used To Lure Victims?!

Claim : Street Children Are Being Used To Lure Victims!

This message has gone viral on WhatsApp and social media, sometimes shared as text, sometimes as screenshots:

URGENT NOTICE
Ministry of Home Affairs.
From all police stations to all citizens

There are children in the streets now carrying papers with their home address written on it and claiming that they are lost. If you see these children, do not take them to the written address because people are waiting for you there to kill you, steal your organs, or rape you, so we ask you to take them to the nearest police station or the nearest emergency patrol and immediately report them.

Please distribute this. This is true, and we confirm that they hand them over to the nearest police station or the nearest patrol that you find. Don’t try to be a hero or a good Samaritan. Send it to all your contacts.
-Rescue Forces.

NOTIS SEGERA
Kementerian Dalam Negeri.

Dari semua balai polis kepada semua rakyat .Terdapat kanak-kanak di jalanan kini membawa kertas dengan alamat rumah mereka tertulis di atasnya dan mendakwa bahawa mereka hilang. Jika anda melihat kanak-kanak ini, jangan bawa mereka ke alamat bertulis kerana orang sedang menunggu anda di sana untuk membunuh anda, mencuri organ anda, atau merogol, jadi kami meminta anda untuk membawa mereka ke balai polis berhampiran atau rondaan kecemasan terdekat dan segera melaporkan mereka.

Tolong edarkan ini. Perkara itu benar, dan kami mengesahkan bahawa mereka menyerahkan mereka ke balai polis terdekat atau peronda terdekat yang anda temui. Jangan cuba menjadi pahlawan atau orang Samaria yang baik. Hantarnya kepada semua kenalan anda.

-Pasukan Penyelamat

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Truth : Street Children Are Not Being Used To Lure Victims!

This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS circulating on WhatsApp and social media, and here are the reasons why…

Fact #1 : Viral Message Has Been Circulating Since 2022

This viral message isn’t new. It has been circulating at least since April 2022, if not earlier. It just keeps going viral on and off on WhatsApp and social media.

The first messages appear to start spreading in Nigeria and Uganda, before going viral in Southeast Asia.

Fact #2 : No Evidence For Street Children Being Used As Bait

There is no evidence that street children are being used to lure victims for criminal gangs looking to kill or rape you, or steal your organs. There is no known case of criminal gangs using street children as bait either.

In fact, it is a rather ridiculous idea. There are easier ways for criminals to target you, than to use street children to lure you in.

Fact #3 : PDRM Calls It Fake News

When the message went viral in Malaysia for the first time in September 2022, the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) issued a statement, calling it fake news. Here is the English translation:

The Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) has detected one (1) message spreading on social media that is alleged to be a ‘warning notice from the Ministry of Home Affairs and police stations nationwide’. The message alleges there are people using street urchins who carry papers with their home address as a tactic to get help to be sent home. Any individual who helps bring such children to the alleged address will be killed, organs stolen and raped.

PDRM confirmed that the viral message is fake and was never issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (KDN) nor PDRM. An investigation also confirmed that no police reports had been received in relation to criminal incidents as shared.

Fact #4 : Not Logical To Kidnap People For Organs

Human organs are not Legos. You can take Legos from one set and use them in another set, but you can’t take organs from someone and just plunk them into another person.

Harvested or donated organs need to be matched to their recipients, or they will be rejected by the body and fail.

Every donor and recipient needs to undergo three tests to ensure compatibility – blood type, blood cross-matching, and HLA typing. If this is not done, organ rejection is almost a certainty.

This is why it is very unlikely for the criminals to just kidnap anyone just to harvest their organs. They will want to match the donors to the recipients BEFORE they kidnap them.

Please help us FIGHT FAKE NEWS by sharing this fact check article out, and please SUPPORT our work!

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He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

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Starlink Donation : What A Brilliant Way To Make $$$!

Starlink Donation : Way Out For Elon Musk + Brilliant Way To Make $$$

Right after being forced to withdraw his demand for more Starlink funding, Elon Musk just found a fortuitous escape hatch for that PR debacle, and a new and brilliant way to make more money!

Chipper CEO Ham Serunjogi tweeted a day earlier that he would be happy to donate money to donate Starlink to schools and hospitals in Uganda.

Just installed Starlink and quite impressed with initial speeds & ease of setup. Most excited about its potential to bring internet access to remote & rural areas that lack infrastructure. @elonmusk I’d be glad to commit $$ to donate Starlink to schools & hospitals in Uganda. pic.twitter.com/zsab7ESBUd

— Ham Serunjogi (@HSerunjogi) October 16, 2022

Musk jumped on it and asked if anyone else would be interested to donate Starlink to places in need.

Are there others that want to donate Starlinks to places in need?

Without waiting for a poll or positive response from his legion of fans, the SpaceX CEO announced 6 minutes later that SpaceX will add a donate option for Starlink.

Ok, we will add a donate option to Starlink

It took Elon Musk only 6 minutes to realise the genius of the idea. A Starlink donation option would kill two birds with one stone.

Not only would it absolve him of the need to (partially) donate to Ukraine or Iran, or impoverished communities, SpaceX gets to financially benefit from those donations, AND reap the PR benefits on top of that!

That’s a pay nothing, and get all three FREE deal right there! What is there not to like?

Elon Musk + SpaceX Do Not Need A Starlink Donation Option!

Call me a cynic, but this is nothing more than a ploy to enrich SpaceX by squeezing the common people to donate Starlink.

Of course, we don’t yet know how the Starlink donation option will work – it was just a declaration of intent. But neither Elon Musk nor SpaceX actually need to add a Starlink donation option.

SpaceX received and continue to receive tens of millions of dollars in donations to provide Starlink to Ukraine, and we know that because their letter of demand leaked inconvenient details – some 85% of Starlink terminals were donated by third party entities like:

USAID – about $3 million on hardware and services
Poland : almost 9,000 Starlink terminals
US : almost 1,700 terminals

In other words – there are already institutions donating vast amounts of money to fund Starlink for such “places in need”. Elon Musk himself can fund a lot of CSR projects with his wealth of over $200 BILLION, even if he ends up buying Twitter.

Elon Musk didn’t become a multi-billionaire by donating his money; and despite signing the Giving Pledge in 2012, he has done very little of it.

What is clear though is that neither SpaceX nor Elon Musk need us common folks trying to make ends meet, to donate Starlink.

Why Is Ham Serunjogi Even Asking For A Starlink Donation Option?

I don’t even understand why Ham Serunjogi is publicly asking Elon Musk if there’s a way to donate Starlink to schools and hospitals in Uganda.

As far as I can tell – SpaceX hasn’t even applied for regulatory approval for Starlink in Uganda. So donating to Uganda is a non-starter, the question moot. Pointless.

But if Ham Serunjogi or any other rich technopreneur wants to help connect “places in need” under Starlink coverage, they can simply order and pay for Starlink. As the Nike motto says – Just do it!

Unless the purpose is to get some nice PR without actually doing anything, or heavens forbid – to give Elon Musk a way to switch the topic away from SpaceX’s less than heroic donations to Ukraine.

Here I lay to rest my cynicism, in hopes that I’m wrong, and Ham Serunjogi and other rich people will do their bit to bring Internet connectivity to people who don’t yet have access.

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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

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WHO Convenes Emergency Meeting On Monkeypox Outbreak!

On 23 June 2022, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus convened an emergency committee meeting under Article 48 of the International Health Regulations to discuss the current monkeypox outbreak.

Chaired by Dr. Jean-Marie Okwo-Bele and Dr. Nicola Low, this emergency WHO meeting on monkeypox is only open to members and advisors of the Emergency Committee.

The findings of this emergency meeting would be conveyed to the Director-General of WHO, on whether the outbreak should be classified as a public health emergency of international concern, and also on potential recommendations on how to address it.

This meeting comes as an NGO called World Health Network (unrelated to WHO) issued a press release describing the current monkeypox outbreak as a “pandemic”, urging “immediate and effective action” from country and global health authorities.

This led to a bit of confusion, as their names and acronyms were similar (WHO vs WHN). To be clear, WHO has not declared a monkeypox pandemic.

Read more : What You Must Know About Monkeypox!

Over 4,000 Monkeypox Cases Confirmed In 56 Countries!

Discovered in 1958, the first human infection was only reported in 1970, and there were only like 400 cases from 1970 to 1986.

Monkeypox became more common over time, with 2000 cases per year reported between 2011 and 2014, and several outbreaks in the US (2003 and 2021), UK (2018 and 2021), and Singapore (2019)..

However, nothing has come close to the 2022 monkeypox outbreak which has now affected at least 56 countries outside of endemic African countries, with over 4,000 cases!

Country	Confirmed Cases	Suspected Cases	Total
Spain	918	100	1,018
United Kingdom	793	–	793
Germany	676	–	676
France	330	–	330
Portugal	328	–	328
Canada	223	45	268
United States	173	–	173
Netherlands	167	–	167
Italy	85	–	85
Belgium	77	1	78
Switzerland	52	–	52
Ireland	28	–	28
Ghana	18	–	18
Brazil	11	6	17
Israel	16	–	16
Australia	13	–	13
Denmark	13	–	13
Sweden	13	–	13
UAE	13	–	13
Austria	12	–	12
Poland	12	–	12
Mexico	9	–	9
Slovenia	9	–	9
Hungary	7	–	7
Czech Republic	6	–	6
Uganda	–	6	6
Romania	5	–	5
Argentina	4	–	4
Finland	4	–	4
Malta	4	–	4
Norway	4	–	4
Somalia	–	4	4
Chile	3	–	3
Colombia	3	–	3
Greece	3	–	3
Iceland	3	–	3
Bulgaria	2	–	2
Latvia	2	–	2
Morocco	1	1	2
Bahamas	–	1	1
Cayman Islands	–	1	1
Fiji	–	1	1
Georgia	1	–	1
Gibraltar	1	–	1
Haiti	–	1	1
Libya	–	1	1
Lebanon	1	–	1
Luxembourg	1	–	1
Serbia	1	–	1
Singapore	1	–	1
South Africa	1	–	1
South Korea	1	–	1
Uruguay	–	1	1
Venezuela	1	–	1
Zambia	–	1	1
TOTAL	4,049	170	4,219

Please Support My Work!

Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!

Name : Adrian Wong
Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp

Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

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